Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

14 reviews

amjone12's review

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Confinement, and Grief

Moderate: Murder, Death, Violence, Genocide, Death of parent, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Animal death, Cancer, and Rape

ashlynmae311's review

dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, Child death, and Bullying

Moderate: Animal death, Mental illness, Grief, Rape, Antisemitism, and Violence

Minor: Cancer

ezulc's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Death, Transphobia, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Rape and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Animal death

erebus53's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense 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

4.25

Another book club read, and I'm glad I was put onto this one, as I otherwise wouldn't have bothered with it. This is a beautifully woven tale of .. uhm, nerds in World War II.

Werner is a snow-haired German lad who was orphanned by the mines of the Reich. As a curious child he develops himself into an electrical engineer who specializes in fixing radios, and is noticed by a German general who forwards him for advancement in an elite military school.
Marie-Laure is the daughter of keymaster of the French museum. She develops cataracts and goes blind as a child, and her father crates a scale model of her neighbourhood as a tactile map for her to learn her way around.
When the war starts, Marie-Laure and her father flee to her uncle's house, and Werner is a radio engineer for Hitler's army.

This story is told with deep emotional resonance, and using all sorts of literary quirks that focus on themes of light and darkness, sounds, sensation, fear and bravery, morality, logic and puzzles, knowing and learning, art and music, the love of nature, and of people. I love the descriptions of things like disappearing in fog– that it's about vanishing into whiteness rather than shadows.  The descriptions are visceral and evocative as well as clever.

This is a story of survival, of war, of fear and bloodshed, and it doesn't pull its punches. It certainly answers, in a humane way, questions about how people can do inhuman things in war, and the toll it can take on families.

I found the going slow, and occasionally tense, but also full of whimsy and beauty in contrast.
Well worth the read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Xenophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Gun violence, Grief, War, Terminal illness, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Medical content, Excrement, Death, Child death, Blood, Antisemitism, Vomit, Torture, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, Cursing, Cancer, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Rape, Racism, Confinement, Chronic illness, Animal death, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcohol, Pregnancy, Classism, and Bullying

mdpenguin's review

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This is a gorgeous, moving, terrifying, and wonderful book. There isn't terribly much else for me to say about it other than that I wish that I'd read it earlier.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Death of parent, Rape, War, Violence, Blood, Child death, and Death

gothmiku's review against another edition

emotional sad slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Bullying, and War

Moderate: Vomit, Child death, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Rape, and Confinement

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Gun violence, and Infertility

catherineduplessis's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

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

3.0

I mostly rate the books I read according to how they make me feel right after I finish them. 

That doesn’t mean I only like books that are funny and lighthearted, but I also like being intrigued, surprised, kept on my toes or at least being left with some kind of reflection or food for thoughts.

Well this book only made me feel depressed, sad and heartbroken.

It’s not a bad story. The imagery is beautifully written, but it just makes it even more heartbreaking.

The story is set during WWII. I knew it wasn’t going to be all rainbows and butterflies, but I was expecting a little more reflections.. maybe?

I had a glimpse of hope at page 400 (!), but nope, it became even sadder. 

The last 30 pages are the most reflective ones of the whole 530 pages book, but they are still tainted with a dark cloud of death, loneliness and sadness.

Oh, and even if the chapters are very short, the pace is VERY slow. It’s like reading someone’s everyday lives in a very depressing time. There is no plot twist. Just a long slow series of moments in 2 different people’s life slowly becoming more and more lonely and depressing.

All this to say that this book didn’t make me feel good at all and quite the contrary, it put me in a reading slump. It took me a lot longer than I thought to read it because I always wanted to do something else rather than read more of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Child death, Death, Torture, War, Confinement, Dementia, Hate crime, Murder, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, and Rape

Moderate: Cancer, Abandonment, Animal death, and Blood

Minor: Pregnancy

polpolpolulu's review

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

This book was beautiful written, a lot of foreshadowing and many literary devices. Once you get hooked you develop and attachment to the characters which makes the last 100 pages of the book hurt like crazy. This is the second book I’ve read in a long time that has made me cry. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Gun violence, Hate crime, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Torture, War, Vomit, Cancer, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Police brutality, Rape, Religious bigotry, Child death, Classism, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Abandonment, Animal death, Blood, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, and Grief

rebekahvldz's review

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.5

I came to this book with the expectations of a crushing, thrilling tale- a romance between two lovers or friends not fated to end up together amidst a turbulent World War 2 backdrop. I expected heartbreak, insights and a lot of sobbing a la Book Thief. This absolutely was a romance book but not between people- rather it was two characters who fell in love with everything and everyone around them, who would do anything to preserve the life they lived so dearly in the countries they were loyal to. It was interesting to see the contrast between what that meant for both characters and both of them did end up breaking my heart in small ways. But there was no fanfare finale, no resolution to the two particular storylines that suggested the story was moving forward. It was kind of worse in a way, because it lacked those. I still loved the book- , the writing was poetic and enthralling, the characters were passionate, curious and dedicated and made me love the things they did but I will say there was no major plot here. It was more a study of two characters, an exploitation of their passions and how that interacted with the impending war but again no grand sweeping story. It was still beautiful, of course and I did enjoy it but I was still waiting for the story to start at page 450. Other than me turning the pages, I would’ve had no indication that the story was moving forward. And each chapter spends only a couple pages with either character so you don’t really get to sink your teeth in, despite the 527 pages. I thought it was worth the read but I deeply wish I had come with no preconceived notions- I might have enjoyed it more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Violence, Grief, Genocide, and War

Moderate: Rape, Racism, Racial slurs, Terminal illness, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death of parent, Excrement, Blood, and Animal death

erin52's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is incredible. The prose is incredibly gorgeous and the way the two/three separate plotlines weave together is so satisfying.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Animal death