Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Matrix by Lauren Groff

17 reviews

sincerelyleah's review against another edition

reflective slow-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child death, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Sexism, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Grief, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Racism, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, and War

ashareadsbooks's review against another edition

dark reflective 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and Sexism

Moderate: Abandonment, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Mental illness, Sexual content, and Terminal illness

Minor: Dementia, Genocide, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Murder, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Torture, and War

c8lin's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Chronic illness, and Death

Moderate: Ableism, Rape, and Terminal illness

stevie's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Excrement, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexism, and Terminal illness

outsmartyourshelf's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.0

Marie de France related by blood, via an act of violence, to the royal family in twelfth-century England is unmarriageable. Tall & unattractive, when her mother dies, she is sent to England, & banished to a poverty-stricken abbey to be their Prioress. Over time, Marie rises from Prioress to Abbess & brings the abbey wealth & prosperity, but through it all she nurses her secret love for Queen Eleanor who treats her with scorn.

This starts off so well. I read the first couple of chapters & thought that this was going to be one of those books that looks unassuming but delivers. Unfortunately I found that it soon went downhill for me. It seemed to be more & more of the same: Marie receives a vision, commences building work, the other nuns grumble but do the work, money pours in etc. I looked up the history of the real Marie, & not much is known & this could have been so much better.

Thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Random House UK Cornerstone/Heinemann Hutchinson, for the opportunity to read an ARC. I am voluntarily giving an honest review.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Animal death

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad 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

4.5

Thanks to Riverhead Books for the free advance copy of this book.

- MATRIX is gorgeous, painful, and powerful. Groff's writing carries you along its current through Marie's ups and downs, power grabs and moments of softness.
- This book is an ode to matriarchy, female friendship and sapphic love, and how these support systems propel us through even the bleakest of times.
- Though at times the poetry of the writing felt like it kept the reader at a remove, I still felt deeply for these women, cheering their victories and mourning their losses with them. Even if you know next to nothing about Marie de France or Eleanor of Aquitane (as I did not) this book is still quite engrossing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Violence, Vomit, and War

daisyandherbooks's review against another edition

challenging hopeful inspiring relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

“For this community is precious, there is a place here even for the maddest, for the discarded, for the difficult, in this enclosure there love enough here even for the most unlovable of women.”

✨Matrix by Lauren Groff✨

This book was probably one of the most poetic books I’ve ever read. It is definitely a piece of literature

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Medical content, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, and Violence