Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

Euphoria by Lily King

19 reviews

cmbohn's review

adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Infidelity, Racism, Suicide attempt, Miscarriage, Grief, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Violence, and Death

Minor: Incest, Racial slurs, Drug use, and War

hkajer's review

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, Cultural appropriation, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, and Child death

keepreadingbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Euphoria is a tense, intelligent and utterly immersive novel taking place in the early 1930s in New Guinea, and I completely devoured it. Three anthropologists, two of them a married couple, are studying the relatively unknown tribes along the Sepik River, and before long their wildly different passions, desires, temperaments and (questionable) choices bring them all to a dangerous point of no return. There is an almost unbearable sense of foreboding and psychological build-up – you feel certain very early on that an explosion will happen, it’s only a matter of when (and what the consequences will be). I admit to flipping pages ahead several times to get an idea of what and when something would happen; it’s a terrible habit of mine when the tension gets too much! 

 

It’s interesting how different Euphoria is from Writers & Lovers; they are nothing alike and might as well have been written by two different authors. The pace and writing, the themes, the setting, none of it is similar, and I can see from reviews that some fans of Writers & Lovers have been disappointed by this one. I’m just lucky that Euphoria caters to just as many parts of me as Writers & Lovers did, particularly my more scientific and feminist sides, and my passion for historical settings. This is my third Lily King book, and she hasn't disappointed this reader yet! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Child death, Abortion, and Miscarriage

readingwithgoose's review

medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Miscarriage, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Physical abuse, and Infidelity

Minor: Excrement

sanikaaa___'s review

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Infidelity, Colonisation, Death, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, and Murder

Minor: Vomit, Violence, and Alcohol

chameleonhound's review

adventurous emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Brutal overtones, though set long enough ago that some are less surprising, I suppose? Offers a thoughtful look at anthropology in the 1930s though.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Child death

Moderate: Miscarriage, Colonisation, Death, Violence, War, and Misogyny

Minor: Death of parent, Racism, Trafficking, and Slavery

bootsmom3's review

adventurous dark emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Child death, Pedophilia, Racism, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Genocide, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual violence, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Gun violence, Pregnancy, and Rape

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Cannibalism

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

madelines_library's review

adventurous dark informative reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

I have complicated feelings towards this book. I would warn anyone that the book starts out (and continues to be) EXTREMELY SLOW... personally, were I not on a road trip I would have stopped reading. At first, I wondered if it was too much in my wheelhouse. I have found that it is actually a good book, but only when one finishes it. It is at the end when things come together, and the reader has an "aha!" moment, where things they hadn't noticed before become all they can think about.

I personally loved the attention to the impossibility of knowing a person, like the challenges anthropologists face in knowing a culture. when you finish the book, readers may realize they don't know the three characters they have spent so much time with. Moreover, though it was a more obvious theme, i did think it was important that the poor ethics/darkside of anthropology in this era was highlighted. While i was extremely frustrated at this book spent so much time on the three westerners, treating the Native New Guineans as set pieces, I have taken that to be a comment on Anthropology during that era (that much research was not really an effort to better know the cultures being studied, but to promote the white anthropologist "interpreting" the culture). Though the book was a monster to get through if you enjoy a book with plot, movement, etc., once the book ends everything falls together, and the book was suddenly worth the time spent. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicide, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Domestic abuse

motleybooksandtea's review

adventurous dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Murder, Torture, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Child death, and Body horror

Moderate: Violence, Miscarriage, Infidelity, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, and Medical content

franklybookish's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Colonisation, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Grief, and Miscarriage