Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Winter of the World by Ken Follett

4 reviews

chloeereesss's review

adventurous challenging emotional 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

4.25

Preferred the first book in series. But realy excited for the third. Some very challenging chapters and descriptions of events. LOVE the characters and relationships throughout the book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Antisemitism, Death, Ableism, Body horror, War, Rape, Violence, Child death, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and Racism

asourceoffiction's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

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

4.0

Like Fall of Giants, this is really several books at once; with separate but interconnected groups of characters spread across the UK, Germany, Russia and the US. The significance of history in this book is matched by that of the characters' more personal stories, and the balance between history and narrative is so brilliantly woven. In fact, it's the characters' individual stories that makes this so easy to read, despite its 900+ pages. The next generation from those we met in Fall of Giants takes up the narrative, but it's never unclear who anyone is thanks to Follett's gentle (but never patronising) reminders, and the cast list at the beginning of each book.

The Russian side of this story was particularly fascinating because I know so little about it, but it was incredibly disturbing to realise how much the Red Army abused their power as liberators of Germany. Assuming that the final part of the trilogy is about the Cold War, I'm intrigued to know more about this side of history.

While I love Follett's writing, this does suffer a little from a man-writing-female-characters perspective. That part of the book hasn't aged well and I did roll my eyes a few times at some of the assumptions made about women.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Rape, Racism, War, Miscarriage, Torture, and Pregnancy

morsa's review

dark informative reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Medical content, Misogyny, Police brutality, Sexual content, Torture, Blood, Body horror, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Violence, War, Vomit, Antisemitism, and Death of parent

Moderate: Ableism, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Classism, Infidelity, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Abortion, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Child death

motivationsloch's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Murder, Miscarriage, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, War, Violence, Slavery, and Rape

Moderate: Torture, Outing, and Infertility

Minor: Abortion and Suicide