Reviews with content warning for Murder - Trespasses

I devoured this on my recent conference trip to Ireland (the cancelled flight and extra day helped… thanks KLM). Something about reading it while traveling there made me appreciate the book and the place more. There is something magical about letting a place’s history sink in while you’re immersed in it, and because the history of the troubles is recent, you can still feel some of the ramifications today. I loved the atmosphere of this book, and the way that Louise Kennedy writes is extremely compelling. She opens up the terrible things that happened in Ireland at the time while staying away from any judgement about which side is good or bad, merely showing how people exist in different realities and how things can get very messy and heartbreaking when those realities intertwine. Highly recommend!

Content Warnings

schorlett's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

ozdensl's review against another edition

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emotional informative sad tense medium-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

2.5

Content Warnings

bookwormdystopian2's review

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dark emotional 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? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

miaaa_lenaaa's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

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

2.0

god this almost book slumped me
i just found the actual plot so bland and annoying

('gonna have an affair with a 50+ year old married man when im 24 and he knew me as a child :D' *meets his wife* 'omg he has a wife what a fucking bastard' like, girl...)

yeah there was just so much of them and i didnt care about either of them tbh
i also found the lack of quotation marks very jarring because of how she writes, it was just sometimes so unclear whether something was being said aloud
the narrative was also quite frustrating and hard to follow, there would be intense details about specific things and then the next line would be a completely different time in a different place, or theyd be downstairs and then yay we're upstairs, how babe? what? it just felt very disjointed to me
just frustrated me more cause there were bits of the writing that i did like or found interesting but none of them were plot related tbh

Content Warnings

alrightcalv's review against another edition

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emotional informative slow-paced

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

1.5

I didn't really connect with this book, and only liked the character Davy. I'm unsure why writers choose to exclude quotation marks, but it negatively affects my reading experience. I found myself getting lost, and there were so many character names I kept forgetting who was who.

I'm not sad I read it, but meh.

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