Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

30 reviews

iftheshoef1tz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book was gutting. Gaunt and Ellwood as children, yearning for each other but not doing anything because they both think their affection for each other is too large for a simple boys’ boarding school dalliance, then

the way they love past each other at the end.

The speed with which all the characters’ naïveté was ripped away was breathtaking and staggering, as was the endless recitation of the injured and dead and dying. It really hammers home just how much of a slaughterhouse World War I was - it annihilated almost an entire generation of boys. 

I found Gaunt’s friends’ acceptance of his homosexuality really beautiful, and of course it’s upsetting that that happens and he really begins to come into himself

at the POW camp with his friends while Ellwood is alone and mentally deteriorating and losing everything that made him such a beam of light for Gaunt. The loss of his poetry - down through only “The Light Brigade” to nothing - was so fucking devastating.

Their love story was so fraught in different ways from beginning to end, and it never stopped hurting. 

Quote:
They were clear-eyed, the Greeks. They did not dress up the world with romance and chivalry, did not lure poetry-hearted fools into evil.

Tropes:
The horror of war
Boy soldiers
Killed by the bottom of the page
Just…say what you feel!!
Yearning that just breaks your heart
Like ships in the night

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Death, Violence, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Antisemitism

writingcaia's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

Boys should be boys, boys that love boys, that hate boys, that dream of poetry and bravery, and that live in a world where epopees and the old generation glorifies war and giving life for God, King and Country.
What many dream of does come, a war, but little did they know it would be called the War to End all Wars. 
One by one, reaching adulthood and even before seeing 18 they depart to the front and butchery.
In a boys school two friends feel differently, but inevitably, one because he doesn’t want to be called a coward or a traitor (being of German descent and eighteen), and the other because he cannot conceive of his best friend, his loved one, dying without seeing him again, enlist. 
All the courage and bravado they felt while reading the In Memoriam with the list of the brave boys before them will soon die, along with thousands. It’s not glory they will face but a world of sickness and death, of loss and grief, of trauma and despair. A world they could not in their wildest dreams ever conceive.
Focused on our beautiful love bird boys on a relationship of miscommunication, this book still tells much of the tragedy of WWI especially among the younger boys, their disillusionment with God and Country, their loss of limbs, of face, of mind, of life. It also gives a peek at a world where boys full around with boys when it’s seen as a young boys “thing” but in war it’s a crime to love one another and act upon it.Another of the themes approached is the different ways in which aristocratic kids like these were treated and promoted compared to civil workers.
The love story drives the plot but it is so much more than that, and that depth of feeling, the poetry of love for country, than hate for it, the love for their friends and the grief for the lost ones.
This was one of my favourite books of 2023, and one I won’t forget!
Totally recommend for historical fiction fans, romantic historic fiction, WWI fiction fans, and lgbtqia+ romance fans.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, and Death

Moderate: Homophobia, Suicide, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, and Mental illness

Minor: Antisemitism

kimmag92's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

In Memoriam may be the best book I've read in 2023 and it makes me sad that it's not getting the same traction in North America as it is in the UK as it was absolutely phenomenal.  Winn paints a heart wrenching picture of what the First World War was like for those who fought in the trenches as well as what life was like for gay men at the time.  I spent the whole book worried about what would happen to Ellwood and Gaunt and if they would survive the war.  Besides her depiction of young gay men in the 1910s, she also reminds us how young many of the boys who fought in the conflict were and how it impacted their lives both through what they witnessed as well as through those they lost.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, Gore, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Blood, Bullying, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Outing, Self harm, Vomit, War, Excrement, Colonisation, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide

Moderate: Homophobia

zarahzoe's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I CANNOT HEAVE THE WORDS INTO MY MOUTH

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Homophobia, Violence, Blood, Bullying, Classism, Gore, and Grief

lcg527's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative 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? It's complicated

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, War, Death, Gore, Grief, Murder, Blood, Body horror, Violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Medical trauma, Suicide, Racial slurs, and Suicide attempt

sylexlibris's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad 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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Blood, Death, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Violence, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, and Panic attacks/disorders

swanuponsleda's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Suicide, Gore, Mental illness, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Body horror, Murder, War, Grief, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Bullying, Classism, and Torture

Minor: Racism, Self harm, Death of parent, Antisemitism, Misogyny, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

kristynpittman's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative tense fast-paced

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

5.0

In Memoriam by Alice Winn is absolutely required reading. Our story begins in 1914. The war is in its infancy and our main characters, Gaunt & Ellwood, are among their friends at Preshute boarding school enjoying the last days of boyhood. One by one as they enter the theatre of war their childhood ideals and easy smiles are striped away. Every bullet, every fallen soldier, is another spec of humanity lost to the trenches. 
Against the backdrop of chaos and despair Gaunt and Ellwood are able to have moments of happiness, poetry, and devotion. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Gore, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Grief, and War

elouisewills's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Beautiful book. It feels terribly sad, but in a dulled way that seems to reflect how the characters must be feeling: life is much worse than it once was but I am too tired and ruined to care enough about anything or about how sad I am.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Medical trauma, Child death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Suicide, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, War, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Homophobia, Antisemitism, and Bullying

miles's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I'm an absolute sucker for books that rip out my heart and wreck it into a million pieces only to put it back together by the end of it and give me a soft forehead kiss.
Lots of realistic pain and terror but interspersed with wonderfully tender and funny moments of beauty that capture your heart.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, War, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Classism, Confinement, Grief, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Antisemitism