Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

28 reviews

zeldazonks's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

Firstly, I don't think this book needs to be as long as it is. There's a lot of fairly dry and extraneous detail of medical procedures and terminology which could definitely have been slimmed down. 
Overall I enjoyed this, there's a hell of a lot going on and I didn't love quite how neatly it all came together at the end, it was a little too Hollywood/Hallmark for my taste. 
However the characters are really well written, there is thoughtful and, at times, beautiful prose and nuanced exploration of complex themes. 
While there are depictions of sexual assault, minor/adult relationships these do fit with the context of the culture, era and I think are pretty well handled so as not to be gratuitous. I was troubled by

the ending and that a key plot point involves justifying an age gap relationship between two characters and you can kind of tell that the author was really trying to portray it as okay and not weird

I don't know, it just gave me the ick and undermined a lot of the preceding story to be honest. I would have preferred the story overall if there was no Digby (or much less Digby) and

the end had been Mariamma finding out about the condition and Lenin being operated on successfully, I didn't really need the last 100 or so pages.

Also be warned that this book can be quite graphic and gory. There are scenes in this that turned my stomach and wouldn't be out of place in a horror film (and I say that as someone who adores horror films). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Police brutality, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Drug abuse, Colonisation, Child death, Drug use, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Mental illness, Medical content, Violence, Blood, Adult/minor relationship, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual assault, Death, and Addiction

elisalasater's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Grief, Child death, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Abandonment, Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Colonisation, Drug use, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Death, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Miscarriage, Death of parent, and Domestic abuse

ellieswilliams's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Death of parent

Moderate: Drug abuse, Pregnancy, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual content

Minor: Colonisation and Abandonment

metaphorsandmisc's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective slow-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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Chronic illness, Suicide, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, and Child death

Moderate: Addiction, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, and Rape

Minor: War and Colonisation

mavemarie's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad 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: Drug use, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Chronic illness, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Addiction, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Medical content

Moderate: Miscarriage, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Slavery, War, Suicide attempt, Misogyny, Sexism, Rape, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Violence

Minor: Incest

lorde_bumblebee's review against another edition

emotional informative sad 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? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Violence, War, Drug use, Pregnancy, Death, Grief, Slavery, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Medical trauma, Medical content, Addiction, Child death, Death of parent, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Miscarriage, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Chronic illness

Minor: Alcoholism

readingveggies's review

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Grief, Self harm, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Medical content, Child death, and Terminal illness

emstrick's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Suicide attempt, War, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, and Death

annie_g_scott's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Child death, and Death

Minor: Sexual harassment and Suicidal thoughts

sakisreads's review

challenging dark emotional 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? No

2.5

I LOVE when Barack Obama releases his Book and Music Lists of the Year, so when this was on there I was very excited to give it a go 👏🏼

Unfortunately, it fell quite short of my expectations. I understand that in multi-generational epic stories like this, everything and everywhere has to be described and thought out, but I felt this dragging on 😫 At some points I unintentionally fell asleep!

I did get VERY excited finding out about Mariamma’s father though. That definitely woke me up! Digby made a comeback I guess 😳 I again must have missed the clues through the drowsiness 🥲

I could see why people loved all the imagery and prose, although it was not for me this time. 2.5 out of 5 stars, thank you ✨

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Drug abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Addiction, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Death of parent, Death, Abandonment, Blood, and Grief