Scan barcode
aseel_reads'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? It's complicated
2.75
Graphic: Child death, Gun violence, Torture, Medical content, Dementia, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, and Sexual harassment
nialiversuch's review against another edition
- 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
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
steveatwaywords'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
4.5
To begin, I too, was off-put by the novel's style, at first: massive single-paragraph blocks with dialogue mashed in, the craftings of image or moment buried in unlooked-for details somewhere inside them. What was Lynch thinking? Shouldn't this be a gripping story of terror as a family falls victim to a growing autocracy and war?
Yes, it is. Claustrophobic, even suffocating, experiences a monumental blur, every event of life piled on top of another demanding our attention with equal fervor, who are we to understand and sort it out? This sense of overwhelm, as so many of us experienced during the politics of the pandemic, is tripled here. In brief, this is as much a reading experience as it is a literary novel of plot and theme.
Little need to detail the events of this woman whose men (father, husband, sons) are swept away by various circumstances to places dark and uncertain. Desperately she accepts her role of holding her family together, and at some point (you decide when but we will all disagree) her noble strength becomes ignorant folly. As the country and family slip apart, as the four children each suffer their trauma in unique ways, as tightly as the narrative camera focuses in on her, we see how easily--how anonymously--she might become a statistic of war, her story lost, disappeared.
And this growing tension is absolutely relentless. We might argue how many choices were actually available, about what sacrifices would "reasonably" be made when all is unreasonable. We might even argue responsibility for the suffering. But we will agree: the events are entirely too plausible, too hyperreal, too close to our fears and too (f)actual for communities who do suffer (and against whom we build walls).
Build what you want. Lynch takes these walls apart, and some of us will still not believe.
Graphic: Child death, Death, Hate crime, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Dementia
kiwichill's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Misogyny, Excrement, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Pandemic/Epidemic
nessreadsalot's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Mother of 4 Eilis, is the main protagonist in this story and we follow her journey coming to terms with the changes and eventual collapse of society and her struggle to keep her family safe and together.
I found the unconventional writing style a little off putting to start but once I got settled into the story I found it added to the building feeling of claustrophobia and urgency. I really would have liked chapters shorter than 30+ pages though as someone who likes to use chapters as stopping points.
Eilis frustrated me so much at times with her insistence that everything was going to be OK soon but my heart was utterly broken for her by the end.
I can't say that I enjoyed this book because it's not an enjoyable subject. It was a book to be experienced that gives that little nudge to the fear that we are lucky by accident of birth that this is not our current reality.
"the world is always ending over and over again in one place but not another and that the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others but some distant warning, a brief report on the news, an echo of events that has passed into folklore,”
Graphic: Child death and Torture
Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Dementia, Trafficking, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail
katieana_210'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? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, War, and Injury/Injury detail
esalan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Dementia, Grief, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Alcohol
Minor: Rape