Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden

28 reviews

especiallysarah's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75


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polkapunkband's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

4.75


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itsbumley's review against another edition

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

4.5


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j_squaredd's review against another edition

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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


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junglejelly's review against another edition

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

4.0

A book I picked up on a whim, wanting to read something different and out of my reading genres. And gosh was it worth it.

The writing is beautiful and captivating but also haunting and sad.

I loved the mixture of writing styles from free verse to transcripts to poems. It really fitted with the character Wolfie and what he goes through.

A book I would 100% recommend to others. I just wish it was a bit longer, despite a satisfying ending, but I'll just have to read more of Godden's work instead.

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brenreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Incredible book rich with poetry and philosophy. A beautiful interpretation of death. Slightly slow in parts and difficult to follow in others - but the stylistic formatting is still delightful.

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cjmrand's review against another edition

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5.0

This book feels a little bit pretentious in all the right ways, in the ways that satisfy my little no-plot-just-vibes loving heart. The formatting, the prose, the characters and the perspectives - who wouldn't want to read from a desk's perspective? And although some people didn't like it, the 'twist' (it's not a twist but I don't really know what to call it; the shift in narrative?) felt good to me. It didn't make any of what happened before less real for me, it didn't diminish its meaning.

It's quite impressive to me that the poems struck a chord when I would never usually enjoy poetry, I think that shows just how impactful the content and the writing style was for me. I loved how Godden captured so many small things so accurately and described them so perfectly in a way that made the story feel so close to life in a good way: how England is written actually, for once, feels like the England I know - I wrote this in my notes while reading: "I really feel like Godden has just perfectly captured the modern day in England, all the tiny details are just. So. Good. Like yeah, of course there's the 'sweet smell of vapes' in the air - of course there fucking is". Plus, the references to Tory apathy and Grenfell and so much else without ever explicitly stating those things was so good.
Godden manages to bottle the real world and put in this book, especially with the main themes of the consistent undervaluing and disregarding of women and ethnic minorities in society, more so with women who are ethnic minorities, and even more so with black women. My notes from page 163:"'it is exhausting how much space men want and how much credit and control man wants to take for mankind' And here I am immediately assuming that the Doctor is male. The bias is so deeply ingrained in me, in all of us."
I want to buy this book and write in the margins and put names of the people I love in the back, and I NEVER want to write in my books. That's significant to me.

The only complaint I have about this book is the occasional overuse of profanity (I feel so old even typing out the word 'profanity', ugh) - what I mean by this is the repetition of one word to an excessive point one one page or so. The repetitive use of "cunt" and talking about fucking and stuff reminded me a bit of those modern art pieces that are meant solely to shock the audience. These parts made me feel a bit iffy, but while they did make me squirm in the moment, it's honestly easy to breeze past them with how good the rest of the book is.

This book is so damn good in every other way though - content, pace, format, every word - and I couldn't stop reading, I was always excited for more. Books about death are my thing right now, I think they provide comfort on such a taboo topic, and this one covers so much more. If you're in the right mental space for it, I would heavily recommend.

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nreyno's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-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? N/A

3.75


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leanneymu's review against another edition

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

4.0

Part poem, part fiction, part memoir, part folklore, this is a really interesting piece of writing. Occasionally, I found the looseness of the narrative a bit difficult to follow - and the continuous repetition made it feel like a written speech, rather than a novel, as such - but overall, I really enjoyed it. 

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graceesford's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.5


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