Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

20 reviews

stitcho's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical trauma, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Death

Minor: Cancer

lissybeth91's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

This book is written in the style of spoken reminiscences, with allusions to things that haven't been described yet, and "but maybe I should explain..." 

This device makes you really feel that you are one of Kathy's friends, or maybe just a chance acquaintance, or perhaps one of her donors who has been asking for stories of Hailsham.

All in all, this is a devastating book, will make you ponder all the things that bind us together as humans.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Medical trauma, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Terminal illness, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Blood, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Grief, and Sexual content

Minor: Homophobia, Chronic illness, and Cancer

areadingstan's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content and Death

Minor: Cancer and Infertility

kirareads02's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.75

This was such a tense listen. You never knew what was going to happen or what secrets would be told. I really enjoyed how we found everything out slowly, and the narrator told us her story as though we lived in that world, like we knew what her school was. 

Really lovely, romantic and hopeful book. At the start I was hooked but couldn't understand reviews as to why it was classed as a dystopian novel so that was interesting for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Terminal illness, Death, Grief, Medical content, Infertility, and Sexual content

Minor: War, Classism, Cursing, Cancer, and Confinement

kotahlotah's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Cancer, Confinement, Infertility, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Trafficking

hmbk's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility and Medical content

Moderate: Death

Minor: Cancer and Blood

ekcd_'s review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Drug use, Cancer, and Death

Minor: Body horror

skudiklier's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

This book was really interesting, and for once I kind of guessed some of the twists/reveals ahead of time. I kept expecting the book to get suddenly more intense or sad, and though of course it was sad, I never came close to crying. It's almost like the mystery distracted me from how sad it was. But! Overall it was written well and it's a powerful book. Not sure I'd recommend it, but I definitely don't regret reading it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, Forced institutionalization, Bullying, and Infertility

Moderate: Ableism, Cancer, Cursing, Genocide, Grief, Homophobia, Torture, Suicide, Sexual content, Slavery, Murder, and Medical trauma

Minor: Infidelity, Vomit, Terminal illness, Stalking, Sexual violence, Mental illness, and Drug use

drachendingsi's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Cancer, Death, Infertility, Toxic friendship, and Medical content

nepheloma's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-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

This is a very interesting book that I personally interpreted as an allegory for the course of life.  The main question it focuses on is: why do we do anything if there's no hope, or at least nothing more than this life, in the end? It's basically a reflection on the absurdity that characterizes our existence through the experiences of three very, very human characters. They are all very flawed, sometimes even to an aggravating extent, but I found it kind of comforting how openly their flaws were explored and how they kept being connected, not despite these flaws, but even alongside them.

What I personally realized through this book was that we keep on living life because that's the core of our humanity: to create and to exist, no matter how absurd our existence might really be. We're not different from the students at all -our existence is a path straight towards death, just like theirs. But we keep carrying on, because what matters is that we live until we die.

I think that the only thing that I didn't enjoy very much was the writing style of this book. I do understand that it is designed to reflect that the story is told orally, but I found it repetitive. Sometimes, there was foreshadowing that was too obvious or even repeatedly mentioned, which made me feel that the set ups the writer wanted to create were a little not too strongly built. At times, I also found the narration somewhat emotionless, especially in the beginning of the book, but even though this bogged me, I have to admit that it did contribute to the general morose, yet hopeful, atmosphere that the book had.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Medical content, and Terminal illness

Minor: Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Grief, Infertility, Medical content, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship