Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Ici et maintenant by Liane Moriarty

68 reviews

reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

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emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective fast-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

This was a decent new entry into Liane Moriarty's ouevre. While not the strongest of her books, it was a literal plane read for me and hit all the notes I would expect: excellent pacing, compelling characters, accessible language etc.

I found that I was most drawn to the first-person narrative of
the Death Lady and her background, especially the parts that described living as a young person in Sydney in the 1960s and 1970s.


 It was probably the largest cast of characters she's had in any of her books, and I think they suffered slightly as she didn't have time to explore all of them to their full potential. The ending of the novel, and the big twist, didn't feel entirely earned. 

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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: Yes

i love liane moriarty. her writing is just phenomenal and i am always so captivated by her writing and her storytelling. i was disappointed last year with ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ so i am so pleased that this one, for me at least, was brilliant. it reminded me of ‘Big Little Lies’ and ‘What Alice Forgot’.

the premise was interesting and not one i’d read before. as someone who often thinks about death/dying, it posed an interesting question of “what would you do if someone told you when and how you would die?”. i found myself worried for these characters, hoping that fate would change and that their ‘predictions’ wouldn’t come true. i was immediately invested in all of their stories and i was keen to read on to see what would happen to each. i grew attached to each of the characters quickly and was worried that they would meet the fate given to them and i didn’t want any of them to die! i think my favourite characters were Allegra, Ethan and Leo but to be honest, i liked all of them. a few characters did get pushed to the side but you expect that when you’re focusing on 7 main characters. but saying that, at no point did i feel like i’d been ‘cheated’ out of their tale.

the story, like so many of Moriarty’s books, has a twist which you feel like you should see coming and can’t believe you didn’t guess. the pacing was great and at no point was i bored or wishing for it to hurry up. if anything i took longer to read this because i didn’t want it to end! 

this book hit me a lot more than i was anticipating. it had a lot of mention of death, of course, but was so much more about grief and the dealing of loss. i probably could have done with a few trigger warnings on this one as a LOT of it hit incredibly close to home but that’s just personal preference. i would say that, (and slight spoiler alert here), Moriarty writes OCD and compulsions incredibly well! not many people understand it but this was done brilliantly. 

i laughed, i cried, i sighed huge breaths of relief throughout. i thoroughly enjoyed it and hope she doesn’t keep us waiting for her next novel!

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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

Interesting premise, but I felt it sort of fell flat at the ending. I didn't feel very satisfied by the wrap up, though it wasn't bad.

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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hopeful inspiring mysterious 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: No

All I can say is WOW. This book was one I could not put down. The story flows so well, and especially if you're listening to the audio book, the narrators do an incredible job. I loved this book, how it made me feel, and what it made me consider. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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: Yes

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