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eelitorr's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Death, Incest, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual violence, and Grief
Moderate: Miscarriage
kimmeyer's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Moderate: Infidelity, Rape, and Sexual assault
elevent11's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Rape and Sexual assault
Moderate: Cancer
Minor: Animal death, Death, Infidelity, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Abandonment
bri0987's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Cancer, Death, Incest, Miscarriage, and Grief
deanna_c's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Child death, Death, Infidelity, and Miscarriage
chaos_and_chapters's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Grief, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting
Minor: Child death, Death, Incest, Terminal illness, and Death of parent
velmad's review against another edition
4.5
Very surprisingly , the main characters experiences with family mirror a lot of mine, right from the grandmother to the mother .
The author , still have a pass more than I think she should have to Elle's mother. She wasn’t a good mother . She was neglectful and selfish and narcissistic. She allowed her men to abuse her daughters emotionally and put her daughters in harms way. It still sounded a bit like her mom was a wonderful person but maybe , true to my life , that next generation will come out even cleaner than Elle and Anna.
I can see how she ended up having an affair. I don’t like it but I see how it happened .
Most definitely this was a difficult read to get through but it was very well wrote.
The only marks I took off were because I often couldn’t keep track of the characters and jumping back and forth was done differently than I had ever read before.
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Vomit, Grief, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment
sazzzberry's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Cancer, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Grief, Stalking, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Infertility and Miscarriage
alisha247's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
the first thing i really noticed about this novel was its writing. the author wrote some really beautiful sentences, especially those focusing on nature imagery, however there were also plenty of sentences that were either prose overkill or simply did not make sense. this, coupled with the incessant back and forth timelines, sometimes spanning years, did not help me follow these characters’ journeys.
secondly, the triggering content. there was unnecessary amounts of graphic sexual abuse and emotional neglect of children. i understand the message the novel was trying to portray with this - how trauma can tremendously shape lives, but the imagery was not needed.
furthermore, none of the characters were very likeable. they were very much one-dimensional to me. this made it difficult to empathise with any of their choices. for some characters, their distastefulness worked well in the story e.g. elle’s parents, her stepparents etc. but for others, readers almost needed to be won over for the story to excel e.g. i certainly felt that peter was bland and his only character traits were being english and vulgar; jonas was presented as a total sweetheart as a child but as an adult, there was no charisma.
and then the ending. i don’t usually mind ambiguous endings, but this left too many loose ends in its wake!
Graphic: Child abuse, Incest, Rape, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, and Sexual content
angelasunshine's review against another edition
3.0
Graphic: Child death, Incest, Infidelity, and Sexual assault