Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

30 reviews

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 cruelty, Animal death, and War

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

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: Gun violence and War

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

nodogsonthemoon's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Blood, Death of parent, and War

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

purplepenning's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Homophobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, and War

Moderate: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Sexism, Slavery, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape and Excrement

leahrosiee's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful reflective 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? Yes

4.5

This is a story about amazement, literacy, time, and memory. Five characters show how stories are passed along through time. How a book, in their case the story of Cloud Cuckoo Land, can hold someone together through all the shit life is putting them through and connect them to people they will never know across the world and throughout time. 
Each character has so much in common despite such vastly different circumstances. 

I found myself more drawn to certain storylines than others, which made it a little slow. Anthony Doerr really said “I could go into heavy detail, and I will, I will go into heavy detail”. I cannot tell you how many pages were dedicated to two of the characters waiting for a war to begin. 
Despite that, there is no denying how expertly the author weaves stories together and what an incredible book this is. 
So …. I don’t know what to think. But I think I love it. 

Side note: if you aren’t already outraged by how little our society values librarians, this book will help solidify that for you, I promise.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Slavery, Violence, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol

machenn's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring slow-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

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

ekmook's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Injury/Injury detail

booksnest's review against another edition

adventurous 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

Anthony Doerr spoke to my soul with this book, it may be long by my god is it good. It’s an adventure story following five different narratives in four different time zones that gradually knit together. I was immensely daunted by the sheer size of this book, at over 600 pages in hardback. But the constant of switching narrative perspective meant this book never felt boring. 

I loved the characters so much, especially Zeno, I loved getting to know this librarian more. And this book had me so gripped to the characters that it had me in tears at the end. I was so intrigued to see how they would all come together and create one story that I just couldn’t put it down for the later half. 

I’m still in awe of this book. It creates fictional world upon fictional world. It tells a story about our planet, about how we need to help it, about community, a love of books, a love for each other. It was both beautiful and filled with passion. Would very highly recommend!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: War and Injury/Injury detail

lmatakas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

I had stopped reading this about a quarter in for months because I couldn’t get past the patchwork of stories—picked it up yesterday and couldn’t put it down again. A fantastic tapestry of coincidence and human-ness and hope and also deep pain but sheesh. I’d say stick with it, it’s worth it, even if (and this may be unpopular) I could have done without the transcription of cloud cuckoo land interspersed throughout. Wowow

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

lindseyhall44's review against another edition

emotional 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Death, Mental illness, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Dementia and Religious bigotry