Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

28 reviews

orchidlilly's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

 Really, truly, spectacular. This is such a beautiful interwoven story spun across multiple lifetimes. It was delightful to see how each life connected with the other. Each character feels tangible and real, they all have so much depth and personality. Each plot-line is gripping and it is impossible to not feel for the characters. Seymour especially, I think, is beautifully written. His mental illness is incredibly accurately done, and he is never once demonized for it. Each character, despite their actions, kind or otherwise, is written and treated with respect and empathy. It's such a beautiful tale of humanity and kindness and struggle, and all of it is portrayed with such well researched nuance and intelligence. Definitely one of the best books if you want to feel something that is neither fully happy nor sad, but a cathartic combination of both. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Misogyny, Violence, Emotional abuse, Xenophobia, Child abuse, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Abandonment, Cursing, Death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Racial slurs, Body shaming, Death of parent, War, Gun violence, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Religious bigotry, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Torture

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Islamophobia, Pedophilia, Classism, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Slavery, Alcohol, Dementia, Drug use, and Excrement

bg_oseman_fan's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective tense fast-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

i liked “All The Light Wr Cannot See,” but i loved this book. i don’t think i’ll ever be able to stop talking about it. i just finished it and i already want to read it again. the themes are so complex and so present in the story. the characters lives and journeys connect and diverge thematically in such interesting ways. truly a timeless tale that should be among the modern classics of literature if it isn’t already. it reads so cohesively even as your journey through time and space and POVs. if you can’t love this book, i truly am sorry for you. such a joy to read. i would recommend to literally anyone, anywhere, anytime. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Rape, Animal death, Pregnancy, Trafficking, Xenophobia, Confinement, Death, Islamophobia, Slavery, War, Violence, Ableism, Suicide, and Terminal illness

shlymiller's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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? Yes

4.75

If you like weaving storylines and libraries, this book is for you.

It took me awhile to get invested in each storyline, but once pieces started connecting I couldn’t put it down. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, War, and Violence

Moderate: Mental illness, Death, Confinement, and Terminal illness

Minor: Body shaming, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, and Death of parent

frannyrdclark's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, and Gun violence

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, War, and Death of parent

Minor: Rape, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

naomi_k's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Racism, Blood, Bullying, Death, Forced institutionalization, Abandonment, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, Confinement, Dysphoria, War, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Religious bigotry, and Violence

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Animal death, and Homophobia

Minor: Medical content, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Child death, Excrement, Alcohol, Sexual content, Misogyny, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

sapphicpenguin's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful

5.0

Absolutely stunning. You might have to take notes, and you'll immediately want to start it over again once you finish. The timelines this book weaves together are so alien to each other at first, but ancient Greek literature touches them all, and they're all so achingly human. Every single character matters and the nonlinearity of the plot is so intentional and meaningful. You're constantly surprised, left wondering. This book is about time, and hardship, and the futility of trying to escape those things. It's about librarians, too, and hope. It's about people. It'll stay with me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and War

Moderate: Child death and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicide, Miscarriage, and Kidnapping

juniperbranches's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective 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

5.0

‘Sometimes the things we think are lost are only hidden, waiting to be rediscovered’

Before I was even finished this book I knew it was going to be one of my favourite books of 2023. This gorgeous novel weaves three stories together in a deftly written love letter to libraries. Zeno Ninis is a Korean War veteran staging a showing of an Ancient Greek play ‘Cloud Cuckoo’ Land by children in 2020, a play once thought lost to the centuries. Konstance lives about a massive space ark in the not so distant future, hurtling toward a new, clean planet on a journey so long that none of the colonists will live long enough to see with their own eyes. Finally, Omeir and Anna are two youths on opposite sides of the great walls of Constantinople in the fifteenth century, as the city is being overtaken by the Saracens. 

All three of these stories revolve around one, lost, Greek text of a Shepard on a journey around the world. Somehow none of these stories is muddled, despite frequent jumps in perspective, and the result is one of the most impactful stories I’ve ever read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, War, Confinement, and Mental illness

Minor: Gun violence

juksu's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Animal death

Moderate: Pregnancy, War, and Chronic illness

greymalkin's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

This feels like a combination of _Map of Salt and Stars_ and _Cloud Atlas_ and I liked it. 

 

I really enjoyed the way the separate stories were connected by a single in-world story, and yet none of them actually read the same story. Bits were made up, lost, reorganized, transformed into a different format, etc.  I didn't like all the stories equally, and I was rather disappointed in the endings for all the characters.  The endings weren't unexpected, I was just hoping for something a bit brighter and more hopeful.  I loved the Konstance and Zeno stories.   I would have been happy if the book was just their two stories intertwining.

The bookclub questions at the end are disappointingly trite.  I was hoping for something more worthy of such a thoughtful book.  I wanted questions more like: "Why do you think the author chose these specific time periods and how do they reflect the way each character reacted to the events in the book?"  and "The author traps three of the main characters inside prisons/sieges, even as the character in Cloud Cuckoo Land is trapped inside the body of a donkey, a whale, and a bird.  Are there parallels that can be drawn there?"

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, War, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Violence, Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

atamano's review against another edition

challenging hopeful fast-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Gun violence

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Violence, and Death