Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

9 reviews

fanchera's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

2.25

I struggled to get through this book. While I am very sympathetic to what the author experienced, no one should ever have to face a brutal attack, have to fight for their life and be left permanently disfigured. It’s very sad that he became a victim of a horrendous attack. My issue with this book was the author’s attitude. It’s quite evident that he grew up affluent and privileged. That is neither here nor there. It was his narcissistic attitude about life in general and also how it all relates to the care he received. His expectations were quite over the top. I did not enjoy his pretentious writing and it’s obvious that he put many middle class citizens far below where he sees himself. It’s his story to tell. I just didn’t enjoy the attitude in which he spoke or how he put others so far beneath himself.

An example of something that rubbed me the wrong way. When his assailant is arrested and they are preparing for trial, he decides that he’s fine with his assailant taking a plea deal and getting out of prison after serving 30 years because, since he would be 116 years old, he would never have to worry about his assailant hunting him down again in his lifetime. But his assailant would be 54 when he would come up for parole. Which, to me, is still young enough to commit another crime, to attack another innocent civilian whose beliefs don’t align with his. To me, that’s a very selfish attitude to have, let alone admit to openly.

I am a pretty sympathetic person but as his story goes on I felt less and less toward him because he comes across as such an unlikable person. By the end I was void of much emotion at all. And for me that is very difficult to digest. How can I feel that way about someone who has been stabbed by a complete stranger 15 times?! I was more sympathetic to him as a complete stranger and less sympathetic now that I’ve had a glimpse of his thoughts and how he would see him as a lowly nurse.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Religious bigotry

lifeinsherds's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Without a doubt, a 5 star rating. Even more so as the audiobook, narrated by Salman Rushdie. A miraculous story of survival with absolutely poetic language about family, love, violence and fear. I cannot recommend this more to literally anyone. I think this will be a book I wish I could read again for the first time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Violence, Blood, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Murder

Moderate: Cursing

vireogirl's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

Very well written. This is the first book of his I've read. I'd heard of it and happened to see it on the Lucky Day shelf. 
His perspective on the world rang true. It had a nice balance of lighter moments, deep thoughts, and observations. His opinion on why religion should be in the private realm and not public was well explained. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Violence, Blood, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Cursing, Death, and Grief

mscalls's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

nicklybear's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Injury/Injury detail

renn20751's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

2.0

While it's absolutely important to find ways to work through trauma, some things should stay in a diary or journal.
This work alternated between snippets of grief to condescension towards those who don't see life the same as Rushdie. 
The sheer amount of self congratulations and navel-gazing was exhausting. I shoul  probably stick to his fictional work.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Gore, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Classism

himpersonal's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced

5.0

I’ve read most of his books, and I’m always struck by the vastness of his imagination. Satanic Verses was the first time I’d encountered magical realism, and I remember being grateful to be at a liberal arts college (Mount Holyoke) that was teaching it as part of an Islam class. My second book was Midnight’s Children, and that was the first time I’d learned about the Indian-Pakistani partition (also taught at Mount Holyoke as part of an Indian literature class). Since then, I’ve read almost every one of his books, and I’ve gained so much from all of them. So I was filled with sadness to find out that the reason he now wears eyeglasses with one side blacked out was due to a stabbing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cancer, Confinement, Drug use, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

megaspey's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

jackslackofshelfcontrol's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail