Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

3 reviews

akvolcano's review

adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

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

1.5

 Honestly it just feels like the author put all the drafts together and made a book out of it. It feels like it’s the same story rewritten over and over again, with slight changes. Wouldn’t recommend reading. The book itself is an interesting concept, but it was not executed well at all.

When I read that the main character has multiple lives, I was excited! But the character doesn’t remember their past lives. And recantation is mentioned twice in the book, but both times are offhand and not really a big deal/significance. Pretty disappointed. I also couldn’t find any of the characters to be lovable, it feels like I barely knew them. Also-idk if it was just me, but the amount of graphic violence and/or uncomfortable topics was completely unnecessary  to the story line. Perhaps two or three would have been consumable, but dang not this much.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cultural appropriation, Miscarriage, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Antisemitism, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Racism, Classism, Domestic abuse, War, Genocide, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Ableism, Colonisation, and Pregnancy

ashbreadin's review

challenging dark emotional informative 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

That book was a mind f***! Honestly it started off pretty good and I was excited for the story. But by the end (or even the late middle), it felt like it didn't really know how it should end, so it just kind of took the cowards way out by

not giving us an actual ending.

. Lots of content warnings, and it just felt like the author wanted to hit every bad thing that could happen in life. Worst use of the "groundhog's day" type of phenomenon I've ever seen.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Rape, Blood, Abortion, Violence, War, Suicide, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, and Child death

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Alcoholism, Animal death, Death of parent, and Genocide

Minor: Racial slurs, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry

jowmy4's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Antisemitism, Death of parent, Genocide, Hate crime, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, and Xenophobia

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Excrement, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, and Vomit

Parts of this book are set during the Spanish flu, the London Blitz, the Bombing of Berlin and the German Third Reich, and feature the expected horrors of each setting. However, I think part of the point of the book is to say that tragedies, horrors and other malign things happen all the time, even outside of these big events and even in seemingly-idyllic and safe locations.