Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

8 reviews

cyndakeel's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Murder, Death, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Animal death and Blood

scipio_africanus's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Peter Heller clearly knows and loves nature and poetry. This book is pretty much a nature novel about fishing, hunting, and survival with brutal post-apocalyptic violence interspersed throughout. This book was so good that it could easily go into my top 10 favorite novels. 

Was surprised by all the bad reviews for this book. I just dont get it. People saying it's slow or boring. I wasn't bored once. There was plenty of violence,  even a good bit of quality humor, and I enjoyed the more peaceful sections of the story as well. I listened to the audiobook, which may have been a different experience to reading it. 

Can't recommend it enough.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Murder, Blood, Gore, Sexual content, Death, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, and Grief

arejaytay's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Chronic illness, Grief, Gun violence, and Terminal illness

jessrad505's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Violence, Animal death, Death, and Gun violence

bcbirrer's review

challenging emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

Like all of Heller's work, this one is beautifully written and takes you deep inside of the character. Post-apocalyptic isn't really my favorite genre, but it's balanced by the lush descriptions of nature. 

The dog dies. While it makes sense in the story and is not a violent death, you might want to be prepared for the grieving.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death and Grief

Minor: Rape, Physical abuse, and Sexual violence

atamano's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Death, Gore, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Cannibalism, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Child death, Chronic illness, and Cursing

Minor: Pregnancy

shellybelly's review against another edition

emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Murder, Death, Abandonment, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Medical trauma, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, and Grief

kelseak96's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

It wasn't my thing, but that doesn't make it a bad book. It happened to have lots of things I dislike in books -- airplanes, dogs, occasional references to sexual violence, not a ton of backstory, long descriptions of nature, the list goes on, but while I was pretty bummed out while reading the book, I can say that it was objectively pretty decent. Extra star for taking place in my favorite state.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Grief

Moderate: Blood, Violence, Sexual content, Gore, and Chronic illness

Minor: Sexual violence

the dog dies