Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

25 reviews

seasonedreadings's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Homophobia, Abortion, Incest, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, Antisemitism, and Sexual harassment

vilde_a's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-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? Yes

4.75

It took a couple of chapters getting into it, but in return, there were several chapters I just had to complete no matter time or place. If you like books about books, you’ll love this!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Police brutality, Violence, Blood, Torture, Sexual content, and Murder

Moderate: Classism, Miscarriage, War, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Grief

Minor: Excrement, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Incest, Medical content, and Sexual harassment

bookish_bry's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious reflective 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? Yes

3.25

This book was very good when it was good, but honestly dragged a bit in some places. The story and mystery is great, but there felt like there was a lot of filler. Also, I was often ripped out of the narrative when we were listening to a part of the story from a particular character's perspective and suddenly zoomed out to third person omniscient giving us information that the character we were following could not know. Sometimes that sort of thing works, but it didn't really feel like it worked here. I also wish we'd spent a little more time getting to know Bea. There were also a few annoying loose ends.

Spoiler

Wasn't... Fermín wanted for murder? Clara just disappeared into nothing. even though I expected her to at least have some baring on the plot at some point.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, War, Violence, Police brutality, Forced institutionalization, Terminal illness, Stalking, Physical abuse, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Misogyny

_qwert's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

• 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Incest, Pregnancy, Torture, Violence, Mental illness, Murder, Rape, Self harm, Police brutality, and Suicidal thoughts

pipn_t's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

Surely the author could have set the historical scene without so many racist remarks and sexist attitudes.  Also got tired of everyone beating each other to a pulp.  It was an interesting story, which is why I read to the end, but one of the major plot points revolves aroundc content I don’t like reading about (

Spoiler

incest

) so I felt rather like I wasted my time on this whole thing as it kinda ruined my enjoyment of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Violence, Misogyny, Racism, Racial slurs, Miscarriage, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Torture, Homophobia, and Murder

Minor: Child abuse, Antisemitism, and Ableism

kiana_hi's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Gun violence, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Murder, Homophobia, Sexism, and Death of parent

Minor: Miscarriage, Lesbophobia, Forced institutionalization, Sexual harassment, and Bullying

amhud1030's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Blood, Death of parent, Sexual content, Violence, War, Classism, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Police brutality, Pregnancy, and Torture

Moderate: Chronic illness, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Infertility, and Sexual harassment

bookwormcat's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

This was a great book. Beautiful prose, compelling characters and a fascinating mystery. Dark and sad but with moments of real humour. I loved it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Misogyny, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Death, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Cursing, Blood, and Body horror

Minor: Incest, War, and Excrement

kell_xavi's review against another edition

medium-paced

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Torture, Misogyny, Incest, Violence, Sexual assault, Fire/Fire injury, and Police brutality

Moderate: Miscarriage, Child abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infertility, Pregnancy, War, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Confinement, Hate crime, Religious bigotry, Mental illness, and Classism

Minor: Excrement

mikarala's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This book was hard for me to rate. There are definitely some real strengths: I think the writing style is beautifully lyrical and engaging, the plot is overall really good, some of the characters are really entertaining, and I enjoy the setting of post-Civil War Spain. However, I do think there are some pacing issues (the first half is quite slow imo), there's no fresh takes of the themes or interesting messages, and I never really fell in love with any of the characters, or even really had strong feelings towards them. What got me really turning the pages in the second half of the novel (which was much quicker paced than the first) was just an eagerness to figure out what was going to happen. And while that's certainly not an issue, it's not what I look for from a book and it prevent me from rating it higher even though I highly recommend reading this.

Ultimately I feel like this is a story that follows the conventions of story-telling extremely well, but without any very interesting twists to make it unique.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting and War

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Rape, and Incest