Reviews

After You'd Gone, by Maggie O'Farrell

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canadagirl1008's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

avalydia's review against another edition

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4.0

More like 3.5 stars.

I'll start by saying that this ebook (or at least my copy of it) was weirdly formatted, which didn't help with the time-skipping, POV-jumping setup of the story. I will also say that what Alice saw was pretty obvious early on and overall everything was very predictable, though this may not have mattered much to the author.

What I was not prepared for were the descriptions of Alice's grief. Holy shit, what a gut punch.

Spoiler

John as a character wasn't much more to me than a finally non-awful boyfriend for Alice, but her despair after his death was so brutal and the last part of the book really stood out because of this. I'm still not sure if she woke up from her coma or not, but wow.

wendybookishthoughts's review against another edition

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fast-paced

5.0

keb3's review against another edition

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emotional reflective 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

Heartbreakingly, devastatingly good. I’m in bits. 💔

katdid's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5 stars. I ended up quite liking this although for a lot of it I found it hard to reconcile the description of Alice (fiery, unable to regulate her emotions) with the Alice we're first introduced to. There is a really great image of her sisters running alongside the train carriage, crying. I found myself annoyed with her friend for being so disparaging -- even appalled -- at the idea of Alice sitting home knitting a jumper

Spoiler

for her dead husband. As someone who picked up knitting as a way of dealing with grief you can just step off friend who's name escapes me! I'm kind of interested in depictions of women dealing with grief actually -- this, that Elena Ferrante book that made me super angry, the films of Ari Aster...