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peachandsmoke's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Moderate: Mental illness
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
frozzlyfrozzle's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Medical content, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicidal thoughts
camiarnett97's review against another edition
- 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
4.25
I would not say that this is the book for everyone, but it was beautifully written and rendered. I want to go through it with a fine-toothed comb to examine the structure, the manipulation of time through flashback. It only takes place over the course of a year, and yet memories from these characters’ entire lives are woven in so seamlessly you feel as if you’ve followed them since birth. It’s a very intimate novel, in all the good and bad intimacy can bring, but despite, or likely because, of its heavy debt paid to previous works and its pretentions, it is surprisingly honest.
Moderate: Sexual content and Suicidal thoughts
arrowheartemoji's review against another edition
- 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
2.0
Graphic: Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Sexual content
Moderate: Sexual assault and Suicidal thoughts
feelinwitchy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Mental illness and Rape
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, and Medical content
Minor: Alcohol, Animal death, Child abuse, Classism, Forced institutionalization, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Colonisation, and Excrement
ginaonthego's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Mental illness
amymcphrsn's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Mental illness
katmanica's review against another edition
0.25
That said: this book was so embedded in whiteness that I hate-read large portions of it. It envisioned the USA as entirely absent of nonwhite people. It used heavy-handed language to establish plot points. I.E., Mitchell was sitting "Indian" style or that he looked like a "swami" on the day of their graduation from Brown to introduce that he was going to be travelling to India. The stuff set in India was, yes probably a highlight of how white people go to India to save it in neocolonial ways, but could have benefited from being critical of that at any point--or even representing nonwhite people in joyous circumstances (as in not focusing on pain and poverty and bodily effluvia of nonwhite people). This is just one example, but the whole book was exhausting from being like this.
It was trying to be feminist, but then turned into being about Mitchell's development of empathy...his word, not mine. Letting the girl be free to make her own choices.
I also understand why other readers find the book pretentious. This book is very caught up in the idea of the natural genius--like the Romantic idea of the male genius. And, I thought we were over that trope.
Graphic: Mental illness and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
beetsnotbombs's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Alcoholism, Addiction, and Sexual content