Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

4 reviews

hocuscrocus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Rape, Colonisation, Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, and Child death

marissasa's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense 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? Yes

3.5

Cloud Atlas is a long, sweeping narrative with each chapter about a different person who is a reincarnation of the previous chapter's main character and the ways they are all interconnected despite existing in different eras experiencing wildly different situations. The theory was very cool to me and I was intrigued by the way that the book doesn't spell out any of the world-building sci-fi elements clearly, leaving the whole reincarnation idea up to interpretation for the most part. However, out of the 6 main characters, 4 were white men whose stories really paled in comparison to the 2 women's chapters. Luisa and especially Sonmi-451 carried this book in my opinion. While their chapters were engaging, action-packed, and full of social commentary, I felt the other chapters dragged on and were far less memorable. I even felt like the first character we were introduced to was by far the least interesting, which made it tough to read since his chapters were the very first one and the last one. Although I liked the premise I just wanted more in the execution from this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cannibalism, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Alcohol, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Body horror, Sexual content, Biphobia, Child death, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Racial slurs, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Racism, Rape, Murder, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Violence

frogggirl2's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

This reads like a series of loosely connected short stories and, like any short story collection, some pieces are better than others.   It feels quite disjointed at first but as you go along the connections become more and more apparent.

The writing is great.  There's a lot of substance here, but, for me there's just too much content.  This point has been made more clearly in other works.  The waters here just get too muddied - there's just too many plots to effectively convey the thesis.

**Also, a lot of racism, indicative of the period and disavowed by the book, but unpleasant.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Antisemitism, Colonisation, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Pedophilia, Addiction, Self harm, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Suicide, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, and Slavery

marro98's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Racism, Homophobia, Genocide, Child death, Animal death, Rape, Suicide, Pedophilia, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, War, Violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, and Colonisation