Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

I Love the Bones of You: My Father and the Making of Me by Christopher Eccleston

7 reviews

sillybillybooklover's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Dementia and Death of parent

contemporarymeepsie's review against another edition

hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

3.0

I Love the Bones of You is an autobiography by Christopher Eccleston following his life from early childhood to starring on the RSC stage as Macbeth. But more specifically framing his life with the influence of his father Ronnie.
I thought this book was okay. I am not usually a reader of biographies, preferring instead to read a memoir (which I consider to be a fictionalised version of a true story) rather then biographies which are generally just famous people recounting things that happened to them in their lives. This was a little of column A and a little of column B for me. The bits of Eccleston's life that related to his family I found to be quite interesting and moving, but the bits about his career I found very boring. There was a particular chapter nearing the end about his work on Our Friends in the North, which obviously meant a lot to him personally, but I was so bored and it was triple the length of other chapters, and it felt very much like his editor had asked him to include more of his work to counter-balance the bits about his dad and family. It felt disingenuous which was a shame and really made me disconnect, but then he moved off his career and returned to what I believed he truly wanted to reflect on, which was his relationship with his ailing father. I personally found these chapters to be much more interesting and thankfully made me finish the book on a high. If that isn't insensitive to say given the context at the end.
Overall I'd say, a semi-interesting read but lots of repetition. Though I did learn some information about Christopher Eccleston I never knew and it reframed my experience of him.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder and Dementia

Moderate: Mental illness and Death of parent

ferncooke's review against another edition

emotional inspiring slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Dementia, and Death of parent

Moderate: Eating disorder

yorgosson's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

I found this quite interesting and I have a lot of respect for Christ Ecc now, Solid book, could have used more... organizing.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Dementia, and Death of parent

Moderate: Car accident

Minor: Homophobia and Medical content

12dejamoo's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

3.5

There is a lot to really love in this book. Christopher Eccleston seems like a very principled person. And it's very interesting to see his thoughts and the guiding moral compass that follows his life. He very much is aware the fact that most of the audience for this book is going to come from Doctor Who fans, but also stubbornly (and I mean that in a good way) talks about what he wants to talk about. I thought it was very classy that he doesn't just give a gossipy account of his time on the show. It's very brief and mostly about what he learned from it.

The topic of fatherhood is present throughout, via his own relationship with his father, and inhabiting the role with his children. I think he has a very interesting perspective on it.

I can't exactly explain why this book is only a 3.5* for me. It was certainly not a 'fun' read, but that's not necessarily a categorically bad thing. I got through it pretty quickly even though I rarely felt excited to pick it up. I almost wonder if I need to read a bunch of other people's reviews to get to a point where I can vocalise why this wasn't a perfect book for me personally.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Dementia, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Grief

Minor: Addiction, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

lauracollins096's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Cancer, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Bullying and Alcohol

feebee's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Dementia, and Death of parent

Moderate: Eating disorder