Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

La casa de los espíritus by Isabel Allende

89 reviews

fatoodles's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

I am so torn about this book... It took me forever to read but always stayed with me.

I fell in love with Clara and loved her so deeply and in contrast I hated Estaban sooooo much but always hoped that he would change and be a better man. 
Otherwise I had a hard time connecting to many of the other characters as the choices they made... Made so little sense. 

I was really bothered by all the casual rape in this book. As well as the other traumatic situations that just felt dumped down into the story. I didn't look into what the book was about prior to starting and so I was surprised at the direction the story took. That being said politics was mentioned all throughout the story and so I'm not sure why I was so surprised. I also know the history and so I knew we would be talking about the civil war... I just thought it'd be lighter. 

I loved the prose and I appreciated my time with this family. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

bookadicted's review against another edition

emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Animal death

zoinkie's review against another edition

mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, and War

riffmonkey's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

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

1.0

I in no way understand why my mother recommended this. I also do not get why the rating of this book is so high by so many people. In the first chapter, there was already much unnecessary grossness and violence towards women. But in the second it was even worse, and it did not get better as the book went on. Call me crazy but I would rather not read a whole chapter about some racist, misogynistic, child-raping paedophile having a tirade about how much better he is than everyone else and trying to justify his slave-owning ass. 

I do not want to read about exploitation or rape. I do not give a shit about torture and the most dark psychological hellscape you can come up with. But just 500 pages of a garbage human ruining the lives of this magical family made me feel sick to my stomach. It's a fucking miracle I even finished this book although I am quite sure I was dissociated for the last 2 chapters at least. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Torture

chiara_dose's review against another edition

adventurous informative mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Police brutality, Car accident, Abortion, and Sexual harassment

emmagiverny's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Death, Rape, Torture, Death of parent, and War

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Violence, Grief, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

siriface's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, and War

smuds2's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• 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

4.75

So close to a 5, there were just some gratuitous scenes that I felt didn’t add to the characters portrayed in them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Incest, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

notallbooks_mp's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Mass/school shootings, Abortion, Gaslighting, Colonisation, and Classism

karydiazc's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

4.5

Reading this book was both amazing and heartbreaking. 
This is the first book I've read of Isabel Allende and I think these words will stay with me for a long time. 

The book starts comically, with fun stories about the family, with sad and almos cruel things woven in between. To be honest I had a really hard time reading the book because those first chapters seemed to go really slow and nothing seemed to be really happening, however things started to move ahead and it started to get interesting. 

I must say I loved almos every character (with obvious exceptions) and found the family history and generations to be quite interesting. 

I've never really been interested in politics so when that part of the books started I wasn't sure what to expect, but characters such as Clara, Blanca and Alba made it worth reading along. 

Now, the last few chapters were so hard to read. Not because they were boring or anything like that, but because of how crude and realistic they were. It's so hard to think that Latin America has been going through that for many many years and along several countries. Even now, it feels kind of close, even though nothing like that is happening apenly in my country (and hopefully won't happen, at least any time soon)

As I said on the beginning, this book was wonderful to read despite everything, however I would recommend anyone who wants to get into it to first read the trigger warnings, since there are a lot and some are very graphic, specially towards those final chapters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Abortion, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Murder, and Classism

Minor: Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism