Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

22 reviews

julesloyola's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Minor: Child abuse, Antisemitism, and Car accident

caintooth's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Confinement and Self harm

jenniferbbookdragon's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Intense and at times deeply emotional,  this is a book that will stay with you for days after you finish it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Slavery, and Cannibalism

brookiebridge's review against another edition

dark sad tense

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

One of my favorite books of all time. The pacing is the best I’ve ever seen, I couldn’t put the book down and finished it, sobbing, at 3 in the morning. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Violence, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Blood, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Homophobia, Sexual content, Torture, and Pregnancy

The book builds up to the reveal of why the main character survived and what happened to him.

He watched as alien children were killed and eaten, and his friends died trying to stand up for them. He was then forced to also eat the alien children to survive, him and his friend underwent medical disfigurement of their hands and his friend died as a result. He was then sold to a brothel where he was raped repeatedly, and accidentally killed a child who had come to try to help him, thinking the child was a rapist at first. He is repeatedly confined to small spaces and isolated. Half of the story is him being investigated by his superiors, who don’t know he was raped but believe he committed murder and had illicit sex, since he is a priest. He has severe ptsd but the investigation forces him to confront his past.

vespasiana's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, and Cannibalism

Minor: Child death and Trafficking

While all the above things do happen in the book, both on and off screen, the bulk of the plot is about the “before” and “after”. Very little of the extreme or moderate stuff is shown for long, but is referenced very frequently in the “after” sections as something the main character is dealing from the fallout of.

nouveau's review

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Torture, Violence, Trafficking, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Pregnancy

ladymickbeth's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Medical content, Cannibalism, and Murder

Minor: Vomit

This is a beautifully written book with a unique and engaging narrative voice and characters that are flawed, but likeable or understandable. I would have given this a higher rating, but there are a number of micro aggressions (primarily against Emilio, who is Latino) and problematic comments.

msagerber's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

conqueringsquid's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Trafficking, Grief, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

smallredboy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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? No

5.0

This is one of those novels that as soon as you finish reading them you will know they will stick with you for a long, long time. I don't even know how to say anything that I want to say. But incredible book. Read it.

Edit a few days after this fact: This is a complex book. It's very much Jewish, even when it deals largely with Jesuits, as it gives you a thousand questions about God (including the good ol' "if God exists, why do horrible things happen?" question) but provides exactly zero answers (maybe half an answer), which is very much a Jewish thing to do. The characters are alive, almost too alive, enough for the foregone conclusion to hurt even before it happens. The way it deals with trauma (mental, physical and sexual) is realistic and cathartic, believable; I feel for Emilio deeply. While I don't know much about science, most of it felt pretty realistic, and I absolutely adored the focus on anthropology and linguistics, as that I understand some more of. The non-linear narrative makes it better, in my opinion; the sinking dread having an understanding of what's going to happen while hope is still high in the air is incredible.

It's a very heavy book, with a thousand trigger warnings to be given. But if you can read it, I really do recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Vomit, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy

Minor: War