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junglejelly's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
The writing is beautiful and captivating but also haunting and sad.
I loved the mixture of writing styles from free verse to transcripts to poems. It really fitted with the character Wolfie and what he goes through.
A book I would 100% recommend to others. I just wish it was a bit longer, despite a satisfying ending, but I'll just have to read more of Godden's work instead.
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Mental illness, and Violence
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Physical abuse
kirstym25's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Death, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Suicide
fionab_16's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Death
Minor: Torture
brenreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Mental illness, Death, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicidal thoughts
rcy's review against another edition
3.0
“here is the murder hole
here's the dungeon
here's a ghost
yes, I know
but I'm trying to sleep”
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
maeverose's review against another edition
TL;DR: none of it grabbed my attention, the writing style irritated me, and it’s very depressing. Which is the point but if I’m not getting anything from it why would I put myself through that?
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. On one hand I can see why people would like it, but it’s definitely not something that works for everyone and unfortunately it didn’t work for me.
To start, this book should come with about every content warning you can think of. It’s very dark. If you have a fear of death or struggle with suicidal thoughts I’d skip it, or at least go in prepared. I don’t have a fear of death and this book triggered my anxiety. There are lots of brutal and sad depictions of deaths, a lot of them thrown at you back to back. It’s a lot. Please check content warnings.
At one point there is a mention of jk rowling and harry potter. It wasn’t exactly positive or negative, but there is also a lot of language on motherhood that’s very tied to the ability to biologically reproduce and I saw zero acknowledgment of trans or non binary people, which for me is a bit of a red flag. I know nothing about this author so I’m not making any accusations, it just gave me the ick so I wanted to mention it.
I’m not a fan of the writing style, and I feel like this is the type of book where you need to like the writing in order to like the book. It’s purposefully very repetitive and I get annoyed by repetition in books. It’s also very vulgar, which I don’t think is an objective issue I just personally really dislike excessively gross writing and this has a lot of that. There were certain quotes or chapters that I liked, but most of it really didn’t work for me.
Obviously I didn’t finish it but I’m not completely sure what the point of the book is. Other than a brief message about cherishing your life and accepting death as a part of life, which is a great message, but it doesn’t focus much on that. It jumped around a lot, to different deaths both fictional and I think some real ones, then switches to Death’s pov which is almost fable-like, then Wolf’s pov which focuses a lot on his grief and mental health issues. It switches between lyrical prose and poetry. It felt more concerned with aesthetics than an actual story or message, but being as I didn’t finish it I could be wrong about that.
Really disappointed tbh because I thought I’d love this :/ That’s on me.
I’ll end with two quotes that I did like:
Pg 45 “funny that, funny how we feel like we know things about people we never knew, isn’t it? We are puppets, we are children, without thinking we so often mouth the words our lips are taught.”
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Child death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Alcohol, Drug abuse, Racism, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Alcoholism, Blood, and Excrement
Minor: Fatphobia, Slavery, War, Car accident, and Misogyny
Lots of descriptions of different deaths. Many of which are very violent or disturbing. In certain chapters they list different deaths back to back and it’s very intense.nreyno's review against another edition
- 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? N/A
3.75
Graphic: Police brutality, Mental illness, Islamophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Death, Physical abuse, Violence, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Slavery, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury
stagemanaginger's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child death, Murder, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Death, Domestic abuse, Animal death, Racism, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence
leanneymu's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Mental illness, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
maybephasing's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Death and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Suicide, Murder, Death of parent, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Sexual assault, Child death, Mass/school shootings, Adult/minor relationship, Rape, and Pedophilia