Reviews

Broken April by Ismail Kadare

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lidia7's review

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

luckyreads08's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I would now like to visit Northern Albania.

Anthropologically intriguing for someone completely disconnected from Albania while proving to be rather amazing in its evocative bareness. Fairly unadorned stylistically, but the brilliant structural/perspectival decisions lead to a work that captures something of the primordial, the totalitarian, and the inescapable: the universal through hyperspecificity.

glrreid's review against another edition

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dark informative reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

faintgirl's review against another edition

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4.0

Deep in the mountains of Albania the Mountaineers have escaped the passage of time by living according to their dark traditions of the Blood Feud. Pitting families against one another the traditions deal almost uniformly in revenge, death, and obligation. Gjorg is a young mountaineer struggling to avenge his family in the face of the endless cycle of murder, counting his days of freedom before becoming the center of the feud himself. Meanwhile, a young couple from Tirana, more modern in their ways, decide to take a honeymoon on the plateau and surround themselves in the characters performing these old rituals. For a while the intrigue is exciting, but soon the reality of violence and retribution draws them in, and things turn sour. The novel is a wonderfully written story of the modern world impinging on traditional, and the negative effect of progress on a world trapped in the past.

leah24's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

poetryandsolitude's review against another edition

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I really enjoyed the first 60 pages or so, a man kills someone and he knows he has about a month before he is killed as well —learning about the blood feuds in the northern parts of Albania during earlier years was so interesting, and Kadare’s use of language is beautiful. kinda embarrassing I had to read this in english, but was pleasantly surprised the library had a copy of this ! New characters were so boring though and it seems like they kind of takeover fully so putting this down for now.

simonator's review

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adventurous mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

What a dignified yet exposing, mystifying yet sober, simple yet sophisticated, terrifying yet beautiful, disillusioning yet romantic portrayal of a people's custom in the eyes of it's participants and onlookers alike.