Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

14 reviews

elsebeok's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Pedophilia, and Trafficking

Moderate: Addiction, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Miscarriage, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, and Colonisation

msteinhaus's review

emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

A very aptly-slow burn about the pernicious effects of long-kept family secrets. I appreciated the complexity of the characters and their relationships to each other, and the clever play (including the reader) of who-knows-what-when. Laura was challenging for me, which I think speaks to the skill of the author. Thought it was a great read for me, because of some aspects of the content, I will be careful with who I recommend this to.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Confinement, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Trafficking, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Miscarriage and Dementia

rachelkreadsbookz's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Kidnapping

Moderate: Sexual violence

avisreadsandreads's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Kidnapping, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Blood, Police brutality, Dementia, Trafficking, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Bullying, Torture, Abortion, Murder, Alcohol, and War

laurenipsum's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Abortion, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, and War

maviemerveilleuse's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Grief, and Colonisation

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, and Trafficking

Minor: Miscarriage

falfy's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I wanted to like this book more than I did. The author is definitely a good writer, but the book was long and dragged on at times with too many characters that didn’t seem relevant. I also didn’t love the way the author portrayed Thai people…it came across as somewhat racist/from a white privileged perspective. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia and Kidnapping

kimgravy's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Trafficking and Kidnapping

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Drug use, Infidelity, Pedophilia, and Sexual violence

serendipitysbooks's review

dark emotional reflective medium-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? Yes

4.0

 
What Could Be Saved is the story of the Preston family. In 1972 the American family - mum, dad and three kids - were living in Thailand when eight year old Philip disappeared. Despite intensive efforts he was never found and the family returned to America and tried to get on with the rest of their lives. Forty years later Laura receives an email claiming to be from her missing brother. Throwing caution to the wind she heads straight to Thailand. Against this background a complicated family story unfolds - one full of flawed characters, secrets , misunderstandings and regrets.

The mystery part of this novel was the less successful element for me. The main details of Philip’s fate were pretty much exactly as I expected. Thankfully the mystery wasn’t the main focus. I thought the characterisation was great -all the main characters were fully rounded with individual stories of their own. I also thought the author did a great job of shining a light on the unflattering reality of American ex-pat life in Thailand at the time, not to mention American foreign policy as well. The way Thai staff were treated was often appalling and cringeworthy. The insular and slightly claustrophobic nature of the expat community was well captured. I liked the structure of the story which featured a dual timeline narrative and think the author did a great job of drawing all the individual threads together. We get five main narrative perspectives and it is only when all are combined that the full picture of the Preston’s life and the factors that contributed to Philip’s disappearance emerges.

A satisfying well-told story that I flew through. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Pedophilia, and Kidnapping

cblunier's review

dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

3.0

Disturbing, depressing.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, and Death of parent