Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens

27 reviews

elliv's review

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Death and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Lesbophobia, Infidelity, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Child death, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Xenophobia

elizabstevensx's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? No

4.0

Read this on recommendation of Sara and Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club and found it intriguing. It’s unlike any other ‘ghost’ book I’ve read and the narrator had a really interesting perspective to view this story from. It was slow paced but easy to read and filled with really relatable sensory language as she infiltrated the minds and senses of the other characters. I also found the jumping between her memories, the memories of the other characters and the present really enjoyable as a narrative ride. Would recommend as a good holiday book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual assault, and Blood

thedukeofpuke_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Sexual content

Moderate: Blood, Sexual assault, and Pregnancy

Minor: Animal death and Suicidal thoughts

willowisp_'s review

adventurous challenging sad slow-paced

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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Sexism, Rape, Eating disorder, Blood, Infidelity, Death, Grief, and Mental illness

attolis's review

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pregnancy, Chronic illness, and Blood

Moderate: Pedophilia

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Rape

silver_lining_in_a_book's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

 

The women that survived me! They stepped out of their houses into the daylight and if I'd had any breath I would have been breathless at the sight of them. The hands of women. The ankles of women. The voices of women as they called to each other across the square.

This is a very interesting and original take on historical fiction. The perspective of a bisexual young ghost who has been wronged by the boy that she loved and now finds comfort in the presence of strong independent women is not one that I have seen before. All in all, I enjoyed the reading experience and found that I learned a lot about Chopin and George Sand as people, which I did not expect to find.

The writing was gorgeous: sensual, intimate and disturbingly explicit. The audiobook was also very well produced and added to the telling of this tale. I enjoyed the fragmented timeline structure - it is something that almost always works for me in books - I was equally interested in both the past and present timelines. Importantly, this book made me interested in checking out more books about Chopin and/or Sand (maybe even her novels)!

Unfortunately, I did have some problems with certain scenes. It is not surprising that Blanca feels used and betrayed by the men around her and she despises the way powerful men abuse that power, and yet, her fascination and objectification of women when she is a ghost troubled me. It is difficult to assign our morality to supernatural situations, but I think that the more intimate of these scenes could have been omitted without negatively impacting the story. I wish that had been done to avoid the problematic area of consent in those cases. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Eating disorder, Vomit, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Pedophilia, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Death, Blood, Sexual violence, Infidelity, Child death, Sexual harassment, and Sexism

Minor: Animal death

lollythegiant's review against another edition

reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Child death, Pedophilia, Blood, Death, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, and Pregnancy

alychee's review against another edition

reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.5

Not my type of book at all but it was great to go out of my comfort zone. The book is a bit weird, yes, but not because it's a ghost narrating it but for the weird "solange is 17 ans she wants to steal her mother's bf" or georges likes chopin in a way that she wants to be his mother/breastfeed him. So yeah: nice, weird, but still cool I loved having the pov of the ghost Blanca is so funny I'm sad at how she died. Also this book is a big "EW MEN" and I couldn't agree more, I'm so glad even as a ghost she kinda acted like a vigilante protecting young girls and

very happy she killed the sacristan, even if it was a mistake he'll finally stop raping CHILDREN

The writing style was also great, so engaging and fun to read

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Pedophilia, Rape, and Terminal illness

Minor: Vomit, Blood, and Suicidal thoughts

veliana's review

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Vomit, Death, Blood, Medical content, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Sexual assault, Infidelity, Sexism, Pedophilia, Toxic relationship, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, and Miscarriage

lostinthelibrary's review against another edition

dark reflective tense slow-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

This was an unexpected delight. I don't have much interest in novels about artists and bohemians and I was worried this would be one of those. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how readable it was. This was largely due to the narrative device of using a ghost narrator, Blanca. Blanca was a wonderful character in and of herself and the way she could inhabit memories made for great expository story telling. I was drawn along by her interest and enthusiasm and found this very unique and enjoyable as well as beautifully expressed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy and Chronic illness

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Sexual assault