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hattiereadssomanybooks_x's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-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? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Murder, Death, and Death of parent
j_squaredd's review
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- 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
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Mental illness, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual content
Moderate: Child abuse, Murder, Domestic abuse, Suicide, Slavery, and Sexual assault
maeverose's review
Dnfed @ 48%
TL;DR: none of it grabbed my attention, the writing style irritated me, and it’s very depressing. Which is the point but if I’m not getting anything from it why would I put myself through that?
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. On one hand I can see why people would like it, but it’s definitely not something that works for everyone and unfortunately it didn’t work for me.
To start, this book should come with about every content warning you can think of. It’s very dark. If you have a fear of death or struggle with suicidal thoughts I’d skip it, or at least go in prepared. I don’t have a fear of death and this book triggered my anxiety. There are lots of brutal and sad depictions of deaths, a lot of them thrown at you back to back. It’s a lot. Please check content warnings.
At one point there is a mention of jk rowling and harry potter. It wasn’t exactly positive or negative, but there is also a lot of language on motherhood that’s very tied to the ability to biologically reproduce and I saw zero acknowledgment of trans or non binary people, which for me is a bit of a red flag. I know nothing about this author so I’m not making any claims, it just gave me the ick so I wanted to mention it.
I’m not a fan of the writing style, and I feel like this is the type of book where you need to like the writing in order to like the book. It’s purposefully very repetitive and I get annoyed by repetition in books. It’s also very vulgar, which I don’t think is an objective issue I just personally really dislike excessively gross writing and this has a lot of that. There were certain quotes or chapters that I liked, but most of it really didn’t work for me.
Obviously I didn’t finish it but I’m not completely sure what the point of the book is. Other than a brief message about cherishing your life and accepting death as a part of life, which is a great message, but it doesn’t focus much on that. It jumped around a lot, to different deaths both fictional and I think some real ones, then switches to Death’s pov which is almost fable-like, then Wolf’s pov which focuses a lot on his grief and mental health issues. It switches between lyrical prose and poetry. It felt more concerned with aesthetics than an actual story or message, but being as I didn’t finish it I could be wrong about that.
Really disappointed tbh because I thought I’d love this :/ That’s on me.
I’ll end with two quotes that I did like:
Pg 45 “funny that, funny how we feel like we know things about people we never knew, isn’t it? We are puppets, we are children, without thinking we so often mouth the words our lips are taught.”
TL;DR: none of it grabbed my attention, the writing style irritated me, and it’s very depressing. Which is the point but if I’m not getting anything from it why would I put myself through that?
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. On one hand I can see why people would like it, but it’s definitely not something that works for everyone and unfortunately it didn’t work for me.
To start, this book should come with about every content warning you can think of. It’s very dark. If you have a fear of death or struggle with suicidal thoughts I’d skip it, or at least go in prepared. I don’t have a fear of death and this book triggered my anxiety. There are lots of brutal and sad depictions of deaths, a lot of them thrown at you back to back. It’s a lot. Please check content warnings.
At one point there is a mention of jk rowling and harry potter. It wasn’t exactly positive or negative, but there is also a lot of language on motherhood that’s very tied to the ability to biologically reproduce and I saw zero acknowledgment of trans or non binary people, which for me is a bit of a red flag. I know nothing about this author so I’m not making any claims, it just gave me the ick so I wanted to mention it.
I’m not a fan of the writing style, and I feel like this is the type of book where you need to like the writing in order to like the book. It’s purposefully very repetitive and I get annoyed by repetition in books. It’s also very vulgar, which I don’t think is an objective issue I just personally really dislike excessively gross writing and this has a lot of that. There were certain quotes or chapters that I liked, but most of it really didn’t work for me.
Obviously I didn’t finish it but I’m not completely sure what the point of the book is. Other than a brief message about cherishing your life and accepting death as a part of life, which is a great message, but it doesn’t focus much on that. It jumped around a lot, to different deaths both fictional and I think some real ones, then switches to Death’s pov which is almost fable-like, then Wolf’s pov which focuses a lot on his grief and mental health issues. It switches between lyrical prose and poetry. It felt more concerned with aesthetics than an actual story or message, but being as I didn’t finish it I could be wrong about that.
Really disappointed tbh because I thought I’d love this :/ That’s on me.
I’ll end with two quotes that I did like:
Pg 45 “funny that, funny how we feel like we know things about people we never knew, isn’t it? We are puppets, we are children, without thinking we so often mouth the words our lips are taught.”
Pg 117 “Death counts on Time. Time loves a deadline: a dead line. Time loves some finality; my cold and clean finish. Life believes Time is for Life, that Time is for the Living. Life is most comfortable living in denial and refusing to believe that Time and Death must also have some sort of love for each other.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicide, Murder, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Violence
Moderate: Drug abuse, Alcohol, Racism, Blood, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Excrement, and Vomit
Minor: Car accident, Slavery, War, Misogyny, and Fatphobia
Lots of descriptions of different deaths. Many of which are very violent or disturbing. In certain chapters they list different deaths back to back and it’s very intense.rain_bellin's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Addiction, Murder, Alcoholism, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual content
rieviolet's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
This book is certainly quite peculiar in terms of narrative form and also of point of view (the chapters from the perspective of a desk, I mean what was that?!).
I think that when it worked for me, it worked really really well and I was left really impressed by the writing style and the profound and poignant exploration of a certain topic. However, when it didn't work, it really really didn't work for me and I just felt very confused and like the narrative style had been overdone a bit too much.
Also, some sections where the character of Death was talking sounded to me too much like an essay, maybe too much "telling, and not showing", not very subtly handled.
At times it felt a bit overly graphic (the list of content warnings is so long that, honestly, it'd be easier to say what is not included) and I'm not sure if it was really necessary for the story. So many examples of very brutal crimes are included and the section with example after example of different types of deaths is quite taxing to get through.
I think it was a bit of a mixed bag for me but I'm still glad to have tried something a bit out of of my literary comfort zone.
I think that when it worked for me, it worked really really well and I was left really impressed by the writing style and the profound and poignant exploration of a certain topic. However, when it didn't work, it really really didn't work for me and I just felt very confused and like the narrative style had been overdone a bit too much.
Also, some sections where the character of Death was talking sounded to me too much like an essay, maybe too much "telling, and not showing", not very subtly handled.
At times it felt a bit overly graphic (the list of content warnings is so long that, honestly, it'd be easier to say what is not included) and I'm not sure if it was really necessary for the story. So many examples of very brutal crimes are included and the section with example after example of different types of deaths is quite taxing to get through.
I think it was a bit of a mixed bag for me but I'm still glad to have tried something a bit out of of my literary comfort zone.
You grow and
become who you are
you grow into your shape
I could have been anything
but this was the shape the world
carved into me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Murder, Violence, Sexual violence, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Domestic abuse, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Blood, Suicide, Mental illness, Grief, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Death of parent, Sexual content, Slavery, Physical abuse, Cursing, Cannibalism, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Alcoholism, Forced institutionalization, and Racism
Minor: Vomit, Excrement, War, Torture, Fatphobia, Trafficking, Transphobia, and Addiction
rosalind's review against another edition
dark
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? No
2.25
I added about 1 star for the ‘Oh, to be a piano!’ which I found charming. Otherwise, this was a book that felt basically irredeemable, I finished it out of spite.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Death of parent, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
mscarlettc's review against another edition
I feel this book was not as advertised. I was expecting a comical and reflective interaction between the fictional character of Mrs death and the writer Wolf and their developmentoof some kind of friendship or relationship. Instead I got a lot of words and not much story. It was all exceptionally confusing and overly complicated. Although in parts were well written and offered interesting explorations of the relationship between modernity and death it ultimately fell far short of its synopsis and the reviews that accompany the book. Overall very disappointing. Additionally not one for fiction lovers who don't particularly engage with poetry. It's largely written in prose.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content and Murder
Moderate: Mental illness
Minor: Racism and Domestic abuse
kate_louise's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
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