Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake

28 reviews

layla_reads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, and Drug use

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Cancer

marselise's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Mental illness, and Grief

imstephtacular's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Grief

Minor: Death, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Medical content, Self harm, Blood, Ableism, Alcohol, Biphobia, Classism, and Cursing

silver_lining_in_a_book's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Grief, Alcohol, and Death

Minor: Car accident

drowning

moodreaderlesbian's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I saw this book on booktok and have been so eager to read it ever since. I'm happy to report that it lived up to my expectations, such a great read. Lovable characters, gripping plot, sapphic girlies. What else could you need?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Eating disorder, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness

Minor: Homophobia, Blood, Vomit, and Grief

lipstickitotheman's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness

Minor: Addiction, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Death, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, and Adult/minor relationship

bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

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

4.25

This was a really good contemporary YA book and a really bizarre take on Twelfth Night. I’ll start with the first bit.

The Last True Poets of the Sea is a book about grief. It’s about history. It’s about trauma. It’s about how people carry those things with them from generation to generation. It has some beautifully complicated and at times tragic sibling relationships. It has a teen sapphic romance that feels realistic for the characters and where they are in their lives.

It also has most of the things that one might expect from a Twelfth Night retelling: A love triangle, a shipwreck, a character named Toby, twins…

But all of those parts of the story are remixed to a degree that didn’t really make sense to me. The shipwreck and the twins (and the gender stuff) are in the past. The love triangle is completely different because Violet falls for Liv first and Orion is for some reason straight. Toby is Violet’s uncle rather than Liv’s. Most of the subplots are cut completely, which makes sense but was still sad (well, I didn’t really miss Malvolio, but I wanted a proper Sir Andrew character, goddammit!). 

The book still works despite these changes to the source material, and they were obviously make deliberately. They just bugged me as a fan of the original play who enjoys seeing new takes on it.

I also have a couple little nitpicks:

Liv refers to herself and Violet as anagrams. This makes sense thematically, but the names Violet and Olivia are NOT anagrams. This was very confusing because the author could have actually given them names that used all of the same letters!

Also, this is a very white book. It makes sense because it’s set in small-town Maine—maybe the whitest part of the US—but why was Violet always remarking on the fact that random side characters were white people when she and all the other characters were also white people? Very odd.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness

Moderate: Child death, Death, Grief, Alcohol, and Drug use

Minor: Homophobia

averyrembish's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Eating disorder, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Alcohol, Child death, Medical content, Outing, and Cursing

Minor: Bullying, Adult/minor relationship, Grief, Homophobia, Blood, Car accident, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, and Vomit

yvonne_cl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Bullying, Car accident, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, Homophobia, and Chronic illness

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Cancer

smolkeri's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Death, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Grief

Minor: Biphobia, Car accident, Drug use, and Medical content