Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar

37 reviews

gabgeh's review

adventurous emotional reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

A confusingly wonderful, overly-poetic epistolary adventure through a time war. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Cursing, Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Murder, Torture, Violence, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Gore, and Genocide

raeb's review

challenging dark emotional medium-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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: War, Blood, Death, Violence, Body horror, Gore, Murder, Self harm, and Torture

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Suicide

talonsontypewriters's review

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, War, Violence, Gore, Body horror, and Grief

Moderate: Animal death, Medical content, Stalking, Abandonment, Confinement, and Self harm

Minor: Child death, Vomit, Torture, Alcohol, and Sexual content

Insects, spiders. Illness.

cemeterygay's review

emotional inspiring reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

The biggest highlight of this book is the prose. The book efficiently tells the bulk of the story and the romance as a series of letters that quickly become love letter set to an ongoing war throughout time. The tragedy and romance of this story just come through so clearly and in such a beautifully heart wrenching way. The letters are honestly the highlight of this book. You really feel for both protagonists as what starts as a cat and mouse game quickly becomes a love story that seems doomed to end consumed in flames by a war that is much older and larger than either of our protagonists. It is one of my favorite sci-fi reads and I cannot recommend it enough.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, War, Gore, Self harm, Gun violence, Violence, Torture, and Murder

Minor: Rape and Suicide

Additional CW: attempted murder, imprisonment, poisoning

estellejacksons's review

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Violence, Torture, War, Self harm, and Animal death

Minor: Rape and Suicide

karambit's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny inspiring reflective 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Confinement, Murder, Animal death, and War

Minor: Alcohol, Genocide, Self harm, Abandonment, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture

honeywine's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book made me cry more audibly than any other book I’ve read. I finished it in a day. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Death, War, Blood, Gore, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Genocide

Moderate: Body horror and Torture

Minor: Self harm

tea_coffee_sam's review against another edition

adventurous tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and War

Moderate: Murder and Violence

Minor: Blood, Animal death, Murder, and Self harm

brnineworms's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

2.5

If you like this book (and I know a lot of people really do), don’t take my disappointment as an indication that you’re wrong to feel the way you do. I’m glad you enjoyed it, but I just didn’t.

Red and Blue make purple, and this prose sure is purple. Every. Single. Sentence. Is trying so hard to be poetic and deep. Metaphors are great and all but this is just too saturated with them to make any real sense. The characters and their relationship didn't feel especially substantive to me. I like the combination of spirituality and science fiction and there’s some neat imagery here and there, but for the most part I found This Is How You Lose the Time War to be a confusing mess and nothing more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, and Self harm

Moderate: Body horror, Grief, Murder, Suicide, War, Animal death, and Violence

Minor: Gore, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Confinement, Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Stalking, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

hmatt's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

Heavy caveat on this review: I think some people will really like this book, but for me it fell pretty flat. A lot of what I didn't like about it came down to stylistic choices.

I think the big killer for my engagement in the storyline was the writing. It was too flowery for my taste and left me wanting more details. I know that as the reader I was supposed to kind of be carried on the mystery and fleetingness of the prose, but it just didn't allow me to get to know the characters well enough. This led to a complete lack of investment in the stakes, and I honestly ended up not caring about the central (/only) plot arc. I couldn't picture what was happening and so I couldn't fully grasp the story.

NGL, had this been a longer book, I likely would have DNF'ed. I do think it's short enough that it's worth giving a chance, though - most readers will know pretty quickly whether the style works for them. I also listened to the audiobook, which may have contributed to my utter confusion at parts when I truly could not figure out what was happening. Honestly. It's a 4 hr 15 min long book, I listened at 1.25x speed, and my reading app tells me it still took 6 hr 21 min to finish the book. It's fricken challenging. This was the closest reading experience I've had that could compare with viewing a piece of absurdist art - another aspect that I think some readers will love, but wasn't for me.
 
TL;DR this book made me feel dumb but not in a good way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Self harm, War, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Death

Minor: Medical content and Torture

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