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e_guerrero's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Torture, and Violence
Moderate: Police brutality and Kidnapping
Minor: Sexual harassment
liloopie's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Pure anguish from start to finish! This book is a gut check I couldn’t but feel for Eillish. Her despair with her choices and the losses she has to sustain are so, palpable that it leaves your feeling gritty, and anguish in your heart. Although the ending was not wrapped up in a pretty bow, it’s fitting since the plot is catastrophic. Thus, the ending is just is fitting due to the acidic nature of the story, It’s hard to say you enjoy the story, but rather you survived the experience like the characters. Deeply moving and sorrowful, Paul Lynch, writes a beautiful very disturbing story that makes you question your own sanity of this very disturbing dystopian story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship
Moderate: Death, Dementia, and Dysphoria
alicia03n09'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? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and War
Moderate: Child death
wossyboy's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-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? No
4.75
Beautifully written, heartwrenching to read. Few books have made me sob the way this book has. Paul Lunch masterfully blends complex prose with simple language to push and pull you through this terrifying descent into totalitarianism. I don't think I'll ever stop thinking about it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Torture, and War
yarm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Although very well-written, the story had very dark, depressing themes. The ending was abrupt with no resolution.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, and War
nialiversuch's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Grief, Abandonment, and War
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Dementia, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Eating disorder and Vomit
sarahlreadseverything's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Violence, and War
Moderate: Death and Dementia
catmac91's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Death, Violence, and War
Minor: Gore
antimony's review against another edition
dark
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.5
i really wanted to like this book bc molly liked it so much and i do like a good dystopian it has to be said but unfortunately it didn't click with me.
i liked a few scenes and i really liked whenever i recognized a landmark or the name of a suburb (when eilish was looking for mark and lied and said he was james(?) from ranelagh and i thought hey! that's the town with the church i went to so i could see their harry clarke window but it was locked and i couldn't get in!). the end was also crazy THEY JUST PUT THEM ON RAFTS AND SAID FIGURE IT OUT???? like i knoww the right place in antrim is just 10 miles from scotland but STILL WHATTT.
but these are the things i did not like:
1. THE WRITING STYLE. in the best of circumstances (a short story) i am totally unbothered by a lack of quotation marks. if it's a full length novel and dialogue isn't even italicised to keep it distinct from body text it starts to grate on my nerves but i could deal with it. what i could NOT deal with was the lack of PARAGRAPHS. HELLO??? who does that... this made it absolutely impossible for me to focus on this book, especially if i looked up and then had to find my place again without the shape of a paragraph to guide me. this drove me up the walls.
i think that this writing style also kept me at a remove from the story. the run-on sentences and lack of quotes can work occasionally but in prophet song it's supposed to be intimate and harsh but this style to me feels like everything is a bit of a haze to wander through. like really absolutely tragic things happened in this book but i couldn't really sink into the feelings of them because the writing kept me so distant from it all. which is obviously a personal problem but my rating is my personal enjoyment. oh well
2. also maybe i've just accidentally overlooked it bc it took a while to get into the swing of this book, but it never really talks about how ireland got into this situation. and i don't mean that it's too sudden, because of course these sort of things happen slowly and then all at once and the characters were busy, they might not have noticed what their country was hurtling towards. but totalitarian regimes don't come out of nowhere. the people who create them are elected and then they take total control from there (or there's a revolution but it seems like the situation in prophet song is more of the first sort) and they are elected by people who agree with them; they have to have some sort of platform. did they promise a return to tradition or intensified religion? did they appeal to a fear of immigrants or a fear of the future or the gold-tinged memory of the past? they were elected for a reason and then their build their reigns from that first stone of their campaign. but the regime in this book has no sense of that. it seems as though the crazy government just became like that overnight, with no sense of what the ordinary-sounding policies they built themselves up on at first were like. does that make any sense at all?
i liked a few scenes and i really liked whenever i recognized a landmark or the name of a suburb (when eilish was looking for mark and lied and said he was james(?) from ranelagh and i thought hey! that's the town with the church i went to so i could see their harry clarke window but it was locked and i couldn't get in!). the end was also crazy
but these are the things i did not like:
1. THE WRITING STYLE. in the best of circumstances (a short story) i am totally unbothered by a lack of quotation marks. if it's a full length novel and dialogue isn't even italicised to keep it distinct from body text it starts to grate on my nerves but i could deal with it. what i could NOT deal with was the lack of PARAGRAPHS. HELLO??? who does that... this made it absolutely impossible for me to focus on this book, especially if i looked up and then had to find my place again without the shape of a paragraph to guide me. this drove me up the walls.
i think that this writing style also kept me at a remove from the story. the run-on sentences and lack of quotes can work occasionally but in prophet song it's supposed to be intimate and harsh but this style to me feels like everything is a bit of a haze to wander through. like really absolutely tragic things happened in this book but i couldn't really sink into the feelings of them because the writing kept me so distant from it all. which is obviously a personal problem but my rating is my personal enjoyment. oh well
2. also maybe i've just accidentally overlooked it bc it took a while to get into the swing of this book, but it never really talks about how ireland got into this situation. and i don't mean that it's too sudden, because of course these sort of things happen slowly and then all at once and the characters were busy, they might not have noticed what their country was hurtling towards. but totalitarian regimes don't come out of nowhere. the people who create them are elected and then they take total control from there (or there's a revolution but it seems like the situation in prophet song is more of the first sort) and they are elected by people who agree with them; they have to have some sort of platform. did they promise a return to tradition or intensified religion? did they appeal to a fear of immigrants or a fear of the future or the gold-tinged memory of the past? they were elected for a reason and then their build their reigns from that first stone of their campaign. but the regime in this book has no sense of that. it seems as though the crazy government just became like that overnight, with no sense of what the ordinary-sounding policies they built themselves up on at first were like. does that make any sense at all?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Violence, and War
wordsofclover's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- 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? It's complicated
4.5
When Eilish Stack opens up her door one evening, she doesn’t expect to see the GNSB on her doorstep looking for her husband. Within a few weeks, her union worker spouse has disappeared and Ireland falls further under a totalitarian rule. As Eilish grapples with the loss of her husband and no answers to her questions, balancing her own work in an increasin hostile workplace and keeping her children together, civil war creeps closer and everyone’s lives are in danger.
This was a gripping read and is one of those books that’s so horrifying yet well-paced that as soon as you pick it up, you can’t put it down until you’re finished.
It was honestly terrifying and horrifying reading this at times thinking about how easy in many ways it could be for Ireland to fall under this kind of rule and for such extremism to be unleashed on the public and by the public. In some ways, it seemed far-fetched and dystopian but then I thought again about how this dystopian version of Ireland was a real life reality for many people in countries today and it’s just a bit mind-blowing and really makes you think about your privilege.
I thought this was excellently written. I felt for the characters and their situation while also feeling a lot of frustration towards Eilish for some of her decisions, for her kids and their reactions and how they often treated their mother and exasperation to the outside world for not helping anyone.
Highly recommend this one and I can understand why it won all the prizes!
Content Warnings
Moderate: War
Minor: Child death and Death