Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - Son

Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Son by Lois Lowry

6 reviews

flyerkelly14's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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

2.0

An interesting story. It adds context to the same world Jonas came from. The beginning very closely parallels the Handmaid’s Tale.

I was unimpressed with the pacing of the book. And the final part of the book (as all of the books in the quartet seem to be) was ambiguous and rushed. Too much happened right at the end, and then the book ends abruptly when you wish it would continue for just one more scene. It just doesn’t feel like we get true resolution.

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ashely_56's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

This was a wonderful addition to the Giver Quartet.

I still have questions but I'm glad to know that some people stories are on track for a happy ending.

Claire was a compelling character to follow and her time in the other village was important for her to come into her own as a person, I still miss Aly and Einer and wish they could have joined Claire in Jonas's village. As I really enjoyed Einar and Claire's budding romance and Aly's
maternal relationship with Claire.

However overall it gave me some relative closure on the world of the Giver.

Though I still wonder what happened to the world that got them to the place where the only civilization left are small pockets of very different live styles such as Jonas's Original City from the Giver, Kira's Village, Jonas's Village, and The village that Claire washed up on.

All of them have vastly different cultures and beliefs and none of them other than Jonas's Village know about the existence of the others.

Lois Lowery has a way with imagery keeps you reading.

Honestly I wish there were more books in this series.

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ravensandlace's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

3.5

tw: forced birth (kind of? Children are chosen to give birth and Claire is only 14), child marriage, miscarriage, child abuse and neglect, parental death, C-sections and traumatic birth, kidnapping

I am a huge fan of The Giver series. I thought the concept was so cool back when I was younger, even though I didn’t appreciate it back when I was in high school. Thank god, I gave it another chance a few years ago. But you’ll hear all of that when I review The Giver series as a whole. Anyway, I always had that nagging question in the back of my mind about what happened to the baby Jonas rescued. Well, now I have my answer. Okay, to be fair, I had my answer but now I officially have the whole story.

I will admit, I wasn’t in love with this one like I was with Messenger or the Giver. I am extremely disappointed by my feelings. I wanted so badly to love this book. There was something about this book. I can’t quite tell what it was. Even now, as I write this review weeks later, I still don’t know why I didn’t love this book. There was just something about it, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I’m going to try and work it out in this review and together, maybe we shall come up with an answer to my problem of why I didn’t like this book.

Maybe my problem was the main character, Claire. She is from Jonas’ world and was chosen to be a Birthmother. A Birthmother is someone who gives birth to the children. They then take the babies, raise them in a nursery and then give them to families who request an infant. After three births, the mothers then go to work at factories. Things don’t work out for her and long story short, she escapes the world and tries to find her son. I admire her tenacity in trying to find her boy but I just couldn’t bond with her. She just came off as really boring to me. I know that in Jonas’ world, feelings aren’t felt for a variety of reasons, but even though, I didn’t find Jonas boring. There was just something about Claire.

I think my problem with the book was two things. The first problem was that the book was starting to become a bit supernatural. What I mean by supernatural is that Jonas and some others had “powers” but the powers are never truly explained. I have no idea how they got them. It just didn’t fit in with the story. I know that the books themselves are unbelievable, especially Jonas’ world but adding a supernatural element just made the whole story weird. The book would have been just fine without it.

My second and I think most glaring problem was with the ending. I won’t spoil what the ending was but I felt it was wrapped up too nicely. Everything just came together a little too well. Normally, I like happy endings, hell I live for them, but for some reason, it didn’t work with this book. Especially with the ending we got for Messenger. I needed some more angst or unhappiness or something.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad book. It answered a lot of questions I’ve had since I read The Giver. But this just wasn’t my favorite. It had the potential to be so much better. But I’m glad I finished the series. As I mentioned above. keep an eye out for my review of the Giver series as a whole, where I will talk more in-depth about my feelings involving this series.

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zoe_senaye's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Ending was really rushed

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photowifephotolife's review against another edition

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azyef's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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