Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

10 reviews

klsreads's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.0

Wow, does Roshani Chokshi know how to write a beautiful sentence. You can really feel the world she crafted, which is no small feat as she jumps between whimsical and brutal realities. I love a coming of age story. I love a dark fairy tale. I love a personified house. I love a weird marriage with secrets. 

As always, check the TW's. There's nothing overly graphic, but plenty of unsettling, nasty things.

1 star docked because while this was stunningly beautiful and filled with fairy tale lore from around the world, the plot was quite slow and sometimes got lost in all the metaphors and similes. Because of that, I think it dragged and it took me a while to get through (though I am silly, silly busy right now). I'm a bit torn saying this, though, because I adored the character development in the backstory and am unsure if this could've been done at a faster pace. I wasn't as interested in the present-day story in the book, though the twists and turns hit some emotional slam-dunks. 

I will absolutely be reading more from Chokshi. Her writing is gorgeous! Highly rec if you like dark fairy tale, slow-burn, coming of age stories. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Dementia, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, and Grief

green_mm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Searing. Sinister. Slippery. This is modern mythology. Chokshi commands feelings from the reader with ease, imbuing them with myriad emotions that she can stir within one at will. The omens, parallels, and symbols weaved into this novel are delicious, leaving the audience thirsty for the next piece of the puzzle, each one a critical detail or profound message that simultaneously adds tension to the plot and clarity to the events unfolding. You cannot beat this caliber of storytelling.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death

Moderate: Child abuse

Minor: Suicide

beccam22's review against another edition

5.0

This book is not what I was expecting by the pitch I’ve always been told. The marriage is not hinging on stories told by the wife and what he learns from her stories, she doesn’t tell her own story until the last chapter so why use that in marketing?

This book is about female friendship, the indescribable love of childhood friendship and the darker side of knowing someone so truly that you know every way to hurt them the most.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Eating disorder, Pedophilia, Self harm, Suicide, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, and Classism

the two young girls mention only eating pure foods and not eating lunch but only snacks like an apple for lunch. They compare bodies in a few scenes. Azure has a step father who lusts over her more than her mother(his wife) and it is heavily implied that he imagines Azure while having sex with her mother because he can’t have her. There is also a scene where she is drugged, unconscious, naked on their bed and he is touching himself watching her while her friend takes a photo of him. Her mother is jealous of her daughter and leaves her while she is 18 but not yet graduated to be with him so the daughter can’t “tempt” him. The husband was abused as a child and his brother died but he was told he never had a brother, the mother removed photos and they gaslight him into believing he made up his brother to the point that he thinks he is the only one who remembers him so surly he must be in fairy. He is able to remember what happened to his brother but it is not explored as much as I would have liked, it was very much a side-side plot. In the end it is revealed that indigo has been azure since graduation, indigo died technically by an accident but she was plotting their suicides for years. Azure then is able to take indigos identity until her husband reveals the truth and stays with her to learn her story. Hence “indigo” being the flower bride until he is able to really learn who azure is.

cedartonk's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

cheye13's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

The best thing I can say about this book is that the writing is beautiful. Stepping back, I can see what it was going for, but ultimately, I think it should've been a novella, or even a short story.

A big part of my disappointment is the fault of the synopsis. I had expected a bluebeard-like tale featuring the Bridegroom as a main character, but as is, he could've been removed from the story entirely. In actuality, this is the story of Indigo and Azure growing up together, and the all-encompassing nature of their friendship and the world they create together. It's an interesting story, but simply too long. Every element of the tale is overdrawn to the point that any initial tension dissolves.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Sexual content, Suicide, Dementia, Grief, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

Minor: Gun violence, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Rape, Dementia, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

a myriad of standard old-style fairytale content warnings, not graphically described, but consistently mentioned: rape, incest, murder, etc. A persistent predatory stepfather and an off-page sexual assault involving blackout drinking.

el393way's review

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

2.75

I have read Roshani Chokshi’s middle grade books with my students for read alouds. She is a talented writer. This was an instant read for me because I wanted to try an adult book from her. Her writing style very much fits the gothic, magical genre this book attempts to be. There were so many elements that played really well to an eerie, suspenseful, gothic motif. 

That being said, I would strongly recommend NOT doing the audiobook for this one. The narrators are good at what they do, but hearing this story unfold is a bit challenging to grasp. It also really spoils the ending of the book because what would be revealed slowly over time for readers is just jarringly obvious for listeners. Perhaps the creative direction chosen for the audiobook simply did not mesh with my own internal reading voice. I think the characters’ tones and accents made them very unlikable (Indigo), pathetic (Azure), or a tad creepy (Bridegroom).

The time jumps back and forth from present really make everything feel like a drag when compared to the more ethereal writing style. What felt like the telling of a story from an unnamed character because more of snapshot of this third character that both narrators have connections to.

Instead of enjoying learning about these characters, they’re so immediately unlikable. When we were younger, most of us had that pretentious, know-it-all friend who thrives off controlling the room and guiding everyone to how they want things to go. That’s what Indigo was and it was so toxic. Instead of enjoying the story I spent a lot of the read being annoyed and rolling my eyes at things she said. Instead of feeling like a gothic novel with magical elements, it felt like the kids in middle school and high school school that like to pretend they’re witches and form their own clique with role playing.

In all, I love the premise but really disliked the characters so much that the whole wasn’t enjoyable.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pedophilia and Self harm

Minor: Suicide

onthesamepage's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Here's the most important thing to know if you're picking up this book: it's not a fantasy. It's not a romance. It is gothic literary fiction inspired by fairytales. Going in expecting anything else will lead to disappointment.

Why it's not a romance
To me, a romance book means that there is a focus on building a romantic relationship between (at least) two individuals that spans the entire story. That is not the case here. Our main character, known only as the bridegroom, falls for and marries a woman named Indigo within the first few chapters, and they've been married for a few years by the time we get to the actual story, which is unraveling the mysteries surrounding Indigo.

Why it's not a fantasy
To really explain why this doesn't count as fantasy, I have to talk about some things that could be considered spoilers. They won't reveal the plot, but will make certain things about the world clear that you wouldn't otherwise know for sure until the end, so I'll put it behind a cut.

There is a lot of focus on fairytales throughout the story. When we meet Azure and see her with Indigo, we're seeing everything from Azure's point of view, and she believes in magic. There is an Otherworld that looks and feels special, the House of Dreams has feelings and shows her things, and Indigo firmly believes that they don't belong to this world and will be spirited away once they reach a certain age. There are also other off-hand mentions, like two types of whiskey, one that will fill your belly for the rest of your days but make you only able to speak the truth, and one that will leave you hungrier than before, but a polished liar. By the end of the book, it became very clear to me that there isn't actually any magic, and that almost everything can be attributed to a) childhood/teenage fancies, or b) introducing fairytale elements to their lives. The only thing that isn't clarified outright is whether the house is actually semi-sentient, but my conclusion by the last page was that it's very debatable that this is true, considering how unreliable our narrators are. This means that every single thing that would make this a fantasy book, is actually just people's imaginations. Hence, not a fantasy.

That's not to say I don't think the book is worth reading. I actually really liked the way fairytales were such a central theme throughout. It's more of a character study than a book with much of a plot, but it was interesting to see how the Indigo we see in Azure's chapters became the Indigo of the present. The pacing was very slow, however, and this has to do with the dual timelines. It bogged everything down, and every time I felt like we were getting somewhere in the present, we'd be back in the past for a significant chunk, which made the bridegroom's story lose its urgency. I also found parts of it to be overwritten—I had to reread a lot of paragraphs, sometimes more than once, because my mind kept wandering from the words. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Self harm, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Pedophilia and Suicide

Minor: Child abuse and Sexual harassment

astralbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Suicide

Minor: Child abuse and Child death

ccouey's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Suicide

emilydrojas's review

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment