Reviews tagging 'Dementia'

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

3 reviews

dancers_and_dragons's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Turnbull does an excellent job of handling multiple points of view, but be warned that if you do not like books where points of view are thrown around a lot, you are not going to enjoy this book. The twists of third person to first person was well-layered, and finding out

who Calvin (the narrator) was definitely kept me curious, though I wish we had learned his name before, as it felt a bit like a self-insert framing of the book and I was quite confused for a while.

The book made me a bit rabid in my curiosity to find out what was going on, and still dragged a little with certain points of view. I did feel, as the book went on, that they made more and more sense (especially when people started getting connected to each other and I wasn't just listening to one person over here and another person over there, but actually had stories coming together). I enjoyed most of the characters, too, and found their stories and motives compelling. Still, though we see many sides and many stories around the same theme, we're kept in the dark about a lot of things as the reader. It made sense from a narrative perspective, but for me this is why I ranked it lower than 4 stars. I wanted to know why things were happening, and wish we'd gotten a better picture of the grand scheme of things a little earlier in the book, so I could put things in perspective.

Ultimately, I'm definitely looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this series, but it was a challenging read in a way I wasn't expecting. I definitely need a little mental break from confusing books for a while, though! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Blood, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, and Dementia

Minor: Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and War

violerwolf's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense slow-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? No

3.25

While I enjoyed the concept and broader ideas explored in the book, including Turnbull’s iconic mosaic narratives, the prose fell a bit flat for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Police brutality, Dementia, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Body horror, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, and Acephobia/Arophobia

Minor: Transphobia and Alcohol

lakea's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Torture, Dementia, Grief, Cannibalism, and Death of parent