Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

23 reviews

bluejay21's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and Grief

Moderate: Animal death and Animal cruelty

jes312's review against another edition

reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

I loved the book "My Side of the Mountain" growing up, so I loved reading about the actual training of a hawk. I love Mabel and the author's descriptions of her hunting, playing, and reacting to the world. I wasn't as intrigued by the inclusion of T. H. White as a reoccurring facet of the story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, and Death of parent

drone232's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

This is about a man and woman trying to find themselves in two different time periods. It is about the author, Helen, whose father just died, and she is trying to distract herself from the pain by buying a hawk to train. She is already experienced in raising birds, but managing a hawk proves quite challenging, especially for someone emotionally insecure like her. She is, at the same time, entranced by the life story of author T.H. White a generation past who also tried to raise a hawk, and had no idea what he was doing. He wanted to find manhood and wildness in the act, but only proves how naive he is. This is a deep and compelling book about human nature with occasional tidbits about birds. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Homophobia

zoinkie's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective tense slow-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Death of parent, and Blood

wordswithjustine's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

As a fan of The Once and Future King and nature writing and as someone whose dad died less than 2 months ago, this was the right book at the right time for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, and Death of parent

As a bit of a T.H. White fan because of The Once and Future King, I was disturbed to learn many challenging things about him that I never knew before. It was interesting, but not always in a good way for me.

teaandpetrichor's review against another edition

Stopped purely because I can't do hunting stuff. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

Moderate: Animal cruelty

hfleur's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and War

rcsreads's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

3.5

It's part memoir, part about hawks and part a biography of T.H. White. The writing is beautifu,  and I liked how it dealt with grief. On the other hand, Hawking seems incredibly cruel to the animals and T.H. White sounds like a horrible person!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death, Animal death, Blood, and Death of parent

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

sshabein's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

An outstandingly good memoir-mixed-with-history about hawks, yes, but also grief and loneliness. I had meant to read this for a long time, but it's probably for the best that I read it much further away from my own father's death. I could enjoy the book without it wrecking me, though there's something to be said for a book that wrecks you too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

Moderate: Death of parent

r_lumbrix's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Animal death, and Death of parent