Reviews - Carol | The StoryGraph

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4.12k reviews for:

Carol

Patricia Highsmith

3.96 AVERAGE

sophie_w8's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

venushaze's review against another edition

3.75

emotional medium-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: Complicated

milliad's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

ekp10's review against another edition

4.0

The characters feel real, they are flawed and imperfect. Yet you care about them and want to know what happen next as you see both of them grow in their own way. In a way, it’s a coming of age story for Therese in addition to a love story.
Patricia Highsmith writes the desperation and the yearning of love in a poetic way. It’s beautiful, and sometimes vulnerable.

Carol is not a great person to start with, she has the upper hand. Therese is so meek, she let Carol runs around and do whatever she wants. She changed her life to fit Carol’s. Then, when the break happens, Therese started seeing carol in a new lens. Not just the perfectness of the other person, but the real world version of her. And only after accepting that, you can have a balance life with someone. Therese needs to stop following whatever Carol wants, she needs to know what it means to create her own world and live her space. The bubble need to be burst and it’s a realistic relationship. The relationship at the end becomes two ways and I like the happy ending for this! Something that I didn’t expect from a 1950s book!

aok700's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

makala_yancey13's review against another edition

3.75

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was pretty good. It was really ahead of its time, considering it was a lesbian romance written in the 1950s that had a decently happy ending. I really appreciate ld the themes of maturing and self-discovery. Seeing Therese go from a lost young woman to a sure-footed adult was nice.

lalawoman416's review against another edition

4.0

This could have been so fantastic, but for the fact that I didn't care for Therese. She was such a child in so many ways and she completely turned me off when she couldn't understand why Carol would choose her daughter over her. She completely lost me at that point. her immaturity became too much for me and I no longer thought she deserved Carol.

Still, overall I loved the story. I I loved the prose. I loved the tone. The ending felt a bit rushed but by that time I was no longer rooting for the couple so wasn't too bad. I would have preferred a happy outcome for Carol, but the outcome, was probably more realistic.