Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

44 reviews

thebowandthebook's review against another edition

emotional inspiring mysterious 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? No

4.75

Really enjoyed the novel, left me well satisfied at the end. Loved how he connected ever aspect of the stories and finished them neatly.

gay relationship

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness

Moderate: Confinement, Kidnapping, and Gun violence

lauramcc7's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Murder, Religious bigotry, War, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Suicide

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

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

tonyadenmark's review

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Abandonment, Grief, and Gun violence

c_wilkinson's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence and Mental illness

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

mitzee's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious 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

One of those books with many different timelines and characters that somehow all work together. Loved the themes of human and animal relationships, environmentalism (in this context it’s both good and bad), and the character growth from different storylines. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: War, Death, Animal death, and Mental illness

Minor: Death of parent and Terminal illness

gvj1910's review against another edition

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gun violence, War, Violence, Torture, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, and Confinement

Minor: Bullying

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