Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

30 reviews

heather_freshparchment's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Confinement, Gaslighting, Infertility, Domestic abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Medical trauma, and Vomit

veposve's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Death, Murder, Vomit, Domestic abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Rape

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Grief, Sexual content, Miscarriage, Infidelity, and Blood

Minor: War

vickie0326's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Really sad when you consider this actually happened (minor details fictionalized). Couldn't put it down. I don't usually like audiobooks but blew through nearly 13 hours in 3 days.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Murder, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Vomit

ruthjenkins's review against another edition

tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

Moderate: Vomit, Sexual content, and Bullying

jhbandcats's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

An intriguing look at the court of one of the royal fiefdoms of Italy in the Renaissance, this novel of a teenage girl’s ill-fated marriage just didn’t grab me. The writing was beautiful and the details richly described, but the story felt flat and bloodless. 

Despite the book being told from Lucrezia’s perspective, I never felt I got to know her. We learn of her lonely childhood with emotionally distant parents and siblings, her compulsion to paint the natural world around her, her increasing isolation and desperation, but she remained unknowable. The husband and his consiglieri are stock villains, the latter especially so. The loving and helpful maid was another stock character. 

That said, the scholarship is so exemplary that I found the novel more than worthwhile. I enjoyed learning about Renaissance Italy - Lucrezia was born two years before the death of England’s Henry VIII but the world of Florence and Ferrara seemed quite different from London. I confess I prefer Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy to this. 

Everyone says Hamnet is fabulous so I’ll have to try it, just not right now. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Grief, Abandonment, Death, Eating disorder, Animal death, Murder, Confinement, Infertility, Misogyny, Violence, and Vomit

musicalpopcorn's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense 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

4.0

When Lucrezia is married to Alfonso II of Ferrara at the age of fifteen, she is taken from the only life she knows and thrown into one she will not survive. 

This book was lurid and imaginative. It kept me hooked from the very beginning. Lucrezia was a fantastic main character who is stuck questioning herself and her husband bit by bit until the end. She is the kind of main character that people love in historical fiction.

The only reason I’m not giving this book five stars is because they did Emilia dirty.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Rape, Violence, and Confinement

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child death, and Classism

rinofnowhere's review

dark hopeful sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infertility, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Rape, Emotional abuse, and Vomit

steph_canread's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

overall really strong ideas and concept, the very end was my favourite part, i was literally on the edge of my seat. i just feel like the start was fairly weak, but still worth it for the rest of the book.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Vomit

zara89's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Murder, Blood, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Infertility, Pregnancy, and Infidelity

Minor: Death of parent

lara_d's review

dark slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

1.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting, Vomit, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, and Murder