Reviews tagging 'Murder'

All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton

6 reviews

timmytunter's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious 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: Death of parent, Violence, War, Child abuse, and Death

Moderate: Colonisation, Gore, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Car accident, Domestic abuse, and Murder

Minor: Rape

merimyers's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I don’t think I like Dalton’s writing style, but I enjoyed the telling of this story.  I’m not sure I could have read it, though there are some aspects of the narration that I didn’t enjoy either. I feel there is an overuse of descriptive nouns that is unnecessary, but again, think this is Dalton’s style, which I don’t seem to enjoy.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Murder

Minor: War and Infidelity

kiwialexa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? Yes

2.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Colonisation, Death of parent, Violence, Murder, Sexual assault, War, Child abuse, Gun violence, Grief, and Death

kaitoro_walker13's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense 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

3.5

This book was fun. It had a very fun "treasure hunting adventure" feel to it, but with undertones of found family and love. The flaws I have with this book is that it takes WAY too long to get started, and that near the end, parts of the story start feeling random, like the author is just writing them to make the book longer. But overall, this book was still a lovely, if average read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Death

Moderate: Rape and Death of parent

Minor: Suicide attempt and Murder

anna_hepworth's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful 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

5.0

I went into this book with minimal knowledge about what I was getting in to. I knew Dalton had got great reviews for previous work, that this was about the bombing of Darwin during WWII, and that was pretty much it. I picked it up in an op-shop, because I needed something to read on a plane, and it looked interesting. 

Such a good choice. Despite the fact that there is a laundry list of content warnings (see below) and in the hands of another author this story might have been a psychological thriller, this is a beautifully written story about love and perseverance. There are no 'surprises' of the type I hate in thrillers, and the writing is poetic, veering in to magical realism. 

While I'd like to write a nuanced and informative review, I got to the end of the book and went 'wow'. Fabulous characterisation, a careful mix of cultural groups, amazing visceral descriptions of landscape,    a plot that meanders coherently and engagingly, beautiful writing. I can see this being a book that gets taught in schools, because there is so much to unpack, so much imagery and interesting parallels. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Murder, Racial slurs, and War

Moderate: Physical abuse and Racism

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Sexual violence, and Xenophobia

My notes while writing this read: death of parent, grave robbing, physical and emotional abuse of child, racism, period typical slurs, implications of sexual violence (not clear if rape), alcoholism, drug use, physical violence between adults, mentions of sex work, being on the ground in a bombing raid plus the aftermath (including dismembered bodies), abandonment of a minor, attempted murder, attempted rape, drowning, murder (graphic), eye damage and other dismemberment due to leprosy plus forced institutionalism of lepers, delirium tremendous, infected wound (graphic description), possible abandonment of child, mentions of suicide,

zjdhudson's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny reflective sad 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? No

4.0

This book took me a while to get through but I think that worked in its favour. The book was heavy at times but it worked really well with the pace at which I was reading, it was a real slow burn reading this book and it was so worth it. I think the characters were really interesting and I think the detail put into the environment was fantastic and true to the Australian landscape. I highly recommend this book but make sure you go into it knowing that it’s a heavy read that may take a while otherwise you could easily be put off for sure.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Alcohol, and Grief

Moderate: War, Violence, Suicide, Stalking, and Murder

Minor: Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Colonisation, Death of parent, and Gun violence