Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Ici et maintenant by Liane Moriarty

66 reviews

emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

What would you do if you knew when and how you’d die? Try to prevent it? Accept it and live your fullest life? 

Here One Moment explores how people react when faced with the realization that everyone’s time on earth is limited. An elderly woman enters a trance-like state on a flight and, unprompted, predicts age and manner of death for passengers. When a few of her predictions appear to come true, a frenzy ensues. Some characters attempt to change their fate, some sit in worry, some are content in the “knowledge” that they’ll live long lives and die of old age. In the end, Cherry’s predictions are revealed to be nothing more than guesses. 

The story is told with dual timelines: one covering Cherry’s life and the other the lives of plane passengers after the flight. I enjoyed Moriarty’s writing, but the plot progressed slowly and the book felt too long for the story it told. I enjoyed the questions she explored and the content made me think a bit. 

I’d recommend it!

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emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I read this one for my book club this month — my pick. I was a little hesitant because I'd read so many negative reviews, about how this was long, with too many characters and was not typical of Liane Moriarty. For the most part that is true. The book IS long and there ARE a lot of characters, but not too many characters, though it does take a few chapters to get to know them well enough to keep them all straight. And it IS different from other Liane Moriarty stories. But in my opinion, it is her best one yet! WOW! After a few chapters, I could not stop reading. I really liked the characters and especially to Cherry, the 'Death Lady'. I started the book really disliking her, but as I got to know her, I found her more and more relatable. One thing I really appreciated was how the author resolved the mystery of the Death Lady. This is going to be a great book for book clubs with a lot to discuss: grief, how you'd react to knowing your future, and more. This gets 4.5 Stars from me. 

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dark hopeful lighthearted mysterious slow-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

I almost quit the book when it was 6-8 chapters in before the big event that set off the rest of the plot was revealed. Overall, I found the pace to be extremely slow and the book to be way too wordy—this book could have been 200 pages shorter. I did appreciate the character development as you felt like you knew each of these people intimately. The narration switched back and forth between third person and first person for the character Cherry, and while I found her to be corny, she did offer some lightheartedness to a plot that lended itself to thinking about heavier topics. 

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dark hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Clever story with a happy (enough) ending that I didn’t expect

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional mysterious reflective 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

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challenging emotional slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective 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

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I love Liane Moriarty’s books and how they start with a tangled mess of characters that end up connected in meaningful and interesting ways in the end. In a similar way to The Measure, this book inspired me to pause and reflect on the trajectory of my life. What does one do with your one, precious life? It also inspires you to tap into empathy, which the world could certainly use more of these days. 


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adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted 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: Complicated

I loved this story!! It honestly made me incredibly uncomfortable to read about death, especially being predicted the way it was for the passengers. It's such a morbid and scary thing, but this book, I just couldn't put it down. It was so well written and just an all around beautiful story and message. I really enjoyed it! 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Elements 
Heartfelt- 💔💔💔💔 
Love aka Romance- 💋💋
Predictability- 🔮🔮🔮& 1/2
Spice-  1/2  of a 🌶 
Tear- 😭😭 & 3/4
Thrill-😲 😲 & 1/2
Humor-1/2 of a 😜

  I found it pretty easy to figure out what was going on with the "death ladies" predictions by about halfway through the book. However, the journey of the book was still fairly enjoyable. 
  I did like the ending and the how/why she ended up doing that on the plane. As well as all the frank discussions of mental health.
  Overall, it is a decent read, and quite emotional. 


Narrators' Rating: 4.5 stars
   My only complaint with the narrators was some of the voices they used were annoying or repetitive in different characters. 

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