Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Alice the Cat by Tim Cummings

4 reviews

painters_tools's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious 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

One of the best books for kids I've ever read. Reading some of the other reviews on this site, I am cracking up at the overly sensitive, inaccurate, puritanical scrutinizations. I was like, Huh?? It's such an important book for all ages about death, grief, emotion, friendships, and hope. Plus, I cracked up through the whole thing. Cotter is so funny and adorable. And the emo teens stole my heart. Highly reccomended book! I will read anything Tim Cummings writes. 
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oracle7's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I couldn't put it down. It's very smart because it really contains everything I think books like this should contain. It's sad, scary, angry, funny, and very hopeful in the end. All of the very weird and interesting characters have a completed arc. I think this book is good for kids needing a story about grief and emotion. I also think it questions faith and religion and the afterlife in s really smart way. It's well written, like a mixture of poetic and simple. I will buy this for people and also make sure it gets into my library. 
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emrosenagel's review

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

2.25

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shainalite's review against another edition

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emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

a challenging read for me even though it's labelled as middle grade. The main character experienced grief and anger which were showed through her words (a lot of cursing words and shouting and other angry comments) and actions (by breaking things and hurting other people). The magical realism element is okay, but I found it insufficient to provide me the convincing backstory and motive especially for the ghost. I think some characters need more exploration, like Eddie, I'm curious about what really happened to him and why people saw him as unstable boy, and Alice the Cat herself, even though she is the title of this book, I didn't get her part enough so it feels like she's so faraway from me as a reader.
I love how it ended, the closure for Tess and her dad, the therapy, the support she needed, and also the new friends she made there (and of course the boob issue she mentioned earlier in this book).
As for the diversity aspect, I think for the side characters, they are there to be a diverse decoration, like the dad from a family was mentioned to have an Asian look, the vet whose Japanese name, another Asian staff at the hospital, another Asian family, non-binary friend of Tess, and the black girl in therapy session. (That's what I got from the way Tess described these characters).
I hope we'd get footnotes for Spanish conversations in this book too.
Thing I disagree : how it implied that the rich is always the bad guy, so a character who lived in an elite area has to explain and felt bad about it. 
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