Reviews

Hood by Emma Donoghue

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maehwa's review

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challenging dark emotional 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

3.5

horrorfemme15's review against another edition

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reflective sad slow-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? It's complicated

2.5

jamietherebelliousreader's review against another edition

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3.0

3 stars. Interesting plot but I really didn't like the characters nor the writing style. It just felt like a mess and the jump between time periods was so confusing and structured weirdly. I liked that it was so much about grief but the execution was so off. This was my first book by Donoghue and while it was nothing impressive I'd probably pick up something else by her.

hannahleila's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

I can’t believe this is the same author that wrote Room.
This was an incredibly poignant journey through the initial aftermath of grief.
A lot of this resonated with me; feeling like you’re doing it all wrong if you’re not falling to absolute pieces, I even begged my boss to let me come back to work the very next day.

It is also the retelling of a cozy, quiet queer love in all its glory.

Content Warnings

_ninahannah's review against another edition

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4.0

Really beautiful writing and an interesting premise. I think it might just not be the book for me? I like books with plots. It was pretty boring and slow and the sex scenes were so unnecessarily graphic. It was like 50% descriptions of things I don't care about, 30% erotica, 20% flashbacks of their relationship, and 0% plot.

lynnski723's review

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2.0

I read this book as part of a challenge to read outside of my normal genres. It won the American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Book Award for Literature so it fit one of the categories I needed to fill. It is the story of a young woman morning the sudden loss of her partner of the last 13 years. The story only takes place during one week, however, there are a great deal of flashbacks during that week. I thought that would make for a great love story but to me, it fell way short. Admittedly, the sex scenes were too detailed and uncomfortable so I found myself speed reading through most of them but I don’t think that affected my opinion. I think the author did a good job on the effects of the main character living in the closet with her job and family and thus having to mourn a best friend rather than a lover/spouse but missed many opportunities to show love and instead chose lust. She also seemed to prefer to cheapen the relationship with affairs by one of the women rather than have more romance. Overall, I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone but wish I had picked a better book.