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silver_lining_in_a_book's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Grief, Alcohol, and Death
Minor: Car accident
drowningskudiklier'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
4.75
Graphic: Suicide, Biphobia, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Homophobia, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Cursing, Death, and Alcohol
Minor: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Child death, Outing, Drug use, Pregnancy, and Infidelity
Drowningaseel_reads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Moderate: Mental illness, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Bullying, Eating disorder, and Sexual content
moodreaderlesbian's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Eating disorder, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness
Minor: Homophobia, Blood, Vomit, and Grief
lipstickitotheman'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
3.75
Graphic: Grief, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness
Minor: Addiction, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Death, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, and Adult/minor relationship
aangult's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I think if I read this book a couple of years ago, it would have been revolutionary to me. I liked how Violet’s complicated family history, Sam’s mental health, Liv’s and Violet’s sexualities and the group’s friendship were handled, and I’m glad this book exists for all the little queer drama kids out there, it just wasn’t for me at this point of my life.
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Suicide, and Panic attacks/disorders
crhealey'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
3.75
Moderate: Mental illness, Suicide attempt, and Suicidal thoughts
bisexualwentworth's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
The Last True Poets of the Sea is a book about grief. It’s about history. It’s about trauma. It’s about how people carry those things with them from generation to generation. It has some beautifully complicated and at times tragic sibling relationships. It has a teen sapphic romance that feels realistic for the characters and where they are in their lives.
It also has most of the things that one might expect from a Twelfth Night retelling: A love triangle, a shipwreck, a character named Toby, twins…
But all of those parts of the story are remixed to a degree that didn’t really make sense to me. The shipwreck and the twins (and the gender stuff) are in the past. The love triangle is completely different because Violet falls for Liv first and Orion is for some reason straight. Toby is Violet’s uncle rather than Liv’s. Most of the subplots are cut completely, which makes sense but was still sad (well, I didn’t really miss Malvolio, but I wanted a proper Sir Andrew character, goddammit!).
The book still works despite these changes to the source material, and they were obviously make deliberately. They just bugged me as a fan of the original play who enjoys seeing new takes on it.
I also have a couple little nitpicks:
Liv refers to herself and Violet as anagrams. This makes sense thematically, but the names Violet and Olivia are NOT anagrams. This was very confusing because the author could have actually given them names that used all of the same letters!
Also, this is a very white book. It makes sense because it’s set in small-town Maine—maybe the whitest part of the US—but why was Violet always remarking on the fact that random side characters were white people when she and all the other characters were also white people? Very odd.
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness
Moderate: Child death, Death, Grief, Alcohol, and Drug use
Minor: Homophobia
averyrembish's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Eating disorder, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Alcohol, Child death, Medical content, Outing, and Cursing
Minor: Bullying, Adult/minor relationship, Grief, Homophobia, Blood, Car accident, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, and Vomit
caseywithabook's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Moderate: Suicide attempt and Mental illness