Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

47 reviews

bellsdixon's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Chronic illness, Racial slurs, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Vomit, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol

isabelcostamurray's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Outing, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Antisemitism, and Alcohol

proudtobeabookaholic's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

När första världskriget bryter ut är många av pojkarna på internatskolan Preshute College ivriga att få ta värvning. Inte Henry Gaunt, som är emot kriget. Men när hans tyska mor ber honom göra det för att skydda familjen från spionmisstankar så anser han sig inte ha mycket till val. Nu slipper han åtminstone kämpa mot sina förbjudna känslor för sin bäste vän, Sidney Ellwood. Men det dröjer inte länge innan hans skolkamrater följer efter honom till skyttegravarna - även Ellwood. 

Den här debutromanen hamnar definitivt på min lista över årets bästa böcker! Jag har läst många böcker om andra världskriget, som då oftast handlat om koncentrationslägren, men få böcker om första världskriget. Här tas vi med ned i skyttegravarna och får veta exakt hur eländigt och skrämmande det var. Den romantiska bilden många unga män hade om att ta värvning förändrades väldigt snabbt när de väl var på plats. Det är fullt begripligt att de som var med vid fronten förändrades som människor, konstigt vore det annars. Det är många gånger hjärtskärande läsning, men här finns också en hel del hopp. Kamratskapen bland soldaterna får stor betydelse och skildras på ett briljant sätt av Winn. 

Det finns likheter med "Den hemliga historien" och "Döda poeters sällskap" och gillar man stämningen i de böckerna så är jag rätt säker på att man kommer att tycka om "In memoriam". Trots det till synes tunga ämnet så är boken lättläst och faktiskt svår att lägga ifrån sig. Texten "lättas upp" av dikter (Ellwood är poet), brev och tidningsurklipp med listor på döda och sårade. Relationen mellan Gaunt och Ellwood är fascinerande att följa, särskilt som homosexualitet var olagligt på den tiden. Ändå var det inte ovanligt att pojkar "fördrev tiden" med varandra och det var på något vis acceptabelt. Så länge man inte blev påkommen...

Det är oftast svårare att sätta ord på varför man älskar en bok, för hur man än försöker så hittar man sällan rätt resonemang. När jag läser igenom det jag skrivit så vet jag inte om jag kommer att övertyga någon om att det här är en bok som inte får missas. Jag får helt enkelt hoppas att många ändå väljer att plocka upp den!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Medical trauma, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Bullying, Homophobia, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content and Suicide

cwg's review against another edition

Brilliant book which really made me feel…everything, I guess. 

WW1-era Britain, private school facing mid-war. Bunch of British school boys sign up and go through hell.

Pleasant prose. Loved reading it. Rendition of war was poignant, not so much focus on the technicalities but the experiences themselves.

Result is that I appreciated the rendered characters. How they quickly come in and out of the narrative can be overwhelming at times, (hard to keep up with names) but it’s fitting in the nature of a war-era narrative. I think it was done well, overall. Even the ones who only get a bit of spotlight I could feel for. There’s a lot of mini-narratives you get to witness from beginning to end, each tale providing another perspective to the war. I felt a great sense of authenticity from it all.

And of course the main characters were great. I wasn’t quite sold on them at first, but quickly turned around as the novel went on. While I felt they didn't feel like real people, they, themselves, felt real---how they moved in this story's changing world reflecting something so...human. 

I ended up feeling a lot for these characters. They were wonderful. 

I may come back to this novel someday. It was lovely.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, and War

Moderate: Alcoholism, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Antisemitism, and Alcohol

Minor: Child death, Suicide, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Classism

milliefitz's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

Minor: Alcoholism, Self harm, Suicide, Antisemitism, Death of parent, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism

rebeccaquinton's review against another edition

dark emotional funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

megelizabeth's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

"Gaunt wished the War had been what Ellwood wanted it to be. He wished they could have ridden across a battlefield on horseback, brandishing a sword alongside their gallant king."

This was SO good. It was a bleak, painful read much of the time, but also filled with so much love and so many beautiful friendships and relationships. It paints a brilliantly vivid picture of life at war and also does such a good job of doing what is often omitted in war-based fiction - exploring the long-lasting mental effects of experiencing war. 

This is a story that's devastating but also just hopeful enough to completely capture your heart. The ending is so clever, bittersweet, and not at all what I was expecting. I just loved this (and both Gaunt and Ellwood <3) so, so much, and I cannot wait to see what else Alice Winn writes in the future.

I think the main reason this wasn't quite a 5* read for me is that I didn't connect with the characters quite as much as I might have done if the cast wasn't so predominantly made up of private-school boys. That's not a criticism of the book as those are simply the experiences it explores, and it does touch on their privileges within the setting of a war frontline - it just meant that, whilst I loved this and loved many of the characters, I wasn't quite as connected as I have been with absolute top-tier books.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Homophobia, Violence, Blood, Murder, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Racism, and Antisemitism

Minor: Death of parent

allisoncdn's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

What an incredible interpretation of the war experience. I absolutely loved the references to Rupert Brooke and Tennyson. The quotes and the historical accuracy made the story incredibly believable, and the atmosphere of public schools is captured really well. 

Gaunt’s presumed death

made me sob half-way through the book, and his relationship with Ellwood feels so real and raw.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Murder, and War

Minor: Suicide, Death of parent, and Alcohol

marmaladereads's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Beautiful. Literary. Utterly devastating account of war. Winn wove an absolutely gorgeous tale of how the naive and poetic Ellwood and the angry and stoic Gaunt are transformed by the trauma and brutality of war. 

This book makes you feel a lot of things. It's filled with love and hope and poetry amid some of the most terrible destruction and gore and the constant drumming of death. Winn manages to strike an incredibly delicate balance of never sugarcoating the brutality, with no character being safe or protected from it, and at the same time giving us just enough of a hopeful undertone that it never feels like trauma porn. 

The character development, war accounts, and love story are all masterfully woven throughout. This is definitely a book I'll be coming back to again and again.

Seeing Gaunt find true clarity and friendship during the war at the same time as Elly is utterly broken by it is possibly as devastating as the constant and rather gory accounts of deaths. It feels incredibly honest that no one comes out unscathed from this book, both physically and mentally, even the characters we come to care for the most.

I love that Winn found a way for Elly and Gaunt to be together in the end in a way where they didn't have to hide, despite the time period. After all they'd been through, I think they deserved at least that, though I would call their ending bittersweet at best.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Violence, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Antisemitism, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

radikaliseradgroda's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense

• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

This is the best thing I've read in years.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, and Antisemitism