Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

27 reviews

lindasoderlundd's review

challenging dark emotional 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Bullying, Child death, Suicide, War, Blood, Homophobia, Alcohol, Cursing, Mental illness, Violence, Medical content, and Sexual content

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, Classism, Colonisation, Miscarriage, and Antisemitism

paulawind's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

To be perfectly honest, I expected more of a

kill your gays type of a situation

, especially considering time period,

but I’m so happy I was wrong! The more I think about it, it was the happiest ending that would be realistic in this situation.

We’ll always have Brazil, fuck the Old World. 
This book was harrowing. I thought I was ready for the horrors of war after reading All Quiet on the Western Front, but this book only awoke my memories. Why do leaders decide to go to war when it is universally acknowledged that it is only bringing pain and suffering? And we do it all over again, for millennia. Maybe the Greeks got it more, when the war was more about man vs man rather than automated machines against civilians. 
Coming to characters, side from them dropping like flies every other chapter, I think the author made us care about every (or almost every) death. The character development for both MCs was absolutely breaking my heart but

I’m so glad they found each other back in the end and are learning to love each other again

An almost complete emotional flip Gaunt and Ellwood did throughout the book hit me like a whiplash, but it was done in a way that it made sense. After all

Gaunt’s prisoners of war camp chapters were the most peaceful and cheerful of the entire book, whereas Elwood was facing bloodbath every day, seeing an orchestrated massacre on a daily basis

One of my favourite moments is when Elwood is screaming poetry at Gaunt, very blatantly professing his love in all meaning but the straightforward one, and Gaunt is so deep in denial that even thought he loved him desperately too, he can’t believe it’s really happening. Those characters in a nutshell. At least for the first part of the book. Later it would be Gaunt being gentle and endlessly patient with Elwood when he struggles to say anything at all and bursting in anger, fighting his ptsd. Gosh, I love those boys so much. Going to pretend that the book ended with “And they lived happily ever after”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Colonisation, Homophobia, Sexual violence, Chronic illness, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Rape, Alcoholism, Body horror, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Murder, Misogyny, Addiction, Child abuse, Cursing, Drug use, Medical content, War, Vomit, Sexual content, Alcohol, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, and Racism

kransom's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Death, and War

Moderate: Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide

willow_thewisp's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, War, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Violence, Colonisation, Confinement, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Alcohol, Body horror, Child death, Classism, Death, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Self harm, and Suicide

patriciapueyolopez's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Homophobia, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, War, Body horror, Death, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Violence, and Mental illness

Moderate: Bullying, Classism, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Minor: Racism, Self harm, Death of parent, Misogyny, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Emotional abuse, and Torture

nadijya's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Alcohol, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcoholism, Animal death, Antisemitism, Gun violence, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death of parent, Infidelity, Deportation, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, War, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicide, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, and Xenophobia

opossumom's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, War, Death, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Antisemitism and Outing

iftheshoef1tz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book was gutting. Gaunt and Ellwood as children, yearning for each other but not doing anything because they both think their affection for each other is too large for a simple boys’ boarding school dalliance, then

the way they love past each other at the end.

The speed with which all the characters’ naïveté was ripped away was breathtaking and staggering, as was the endless recitation of the injured and dead and dying. It really hammers home just how much of a slaughterhouse World War I was - it annihilated almost an entire generation of boys. 

I found Gaunt’s friends’ acceptance of his homosexuality really beautiful, and of course it’s upsetting that that happens and he really begins to come into himself

at the POW camp with his friends while Ellwood is alone and mentally deteriorating and losing everything that made him such a beam of light for Gaunt. The loss of his poetry - down through only “The Light Brigade” to nothing - was so fucking devastating.

Their love story was so fraught in different ways from beginning to end, and it never stopped hurting. 

Quote:
They were clear-eyed, the Greeks. They did not dress up the world with romance and chivalry, did not lure poetry-hearted fools into evil.

Tropes:
The horror of war
Boy soldiers
Killed by the bottom of the page
Just…say what you feel!!
Yearning that just breaks your heart
Like ships in the night

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Death, Violence, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Antisemitism

writingcaia's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

Boys should be boys, boys that love boys, that hate boys, that dream of poetry and bravery, and that live in a world where epopees and the old generation glorifies war and giving life for God, King and Country.
What many dream of does come, a war, but little did they know it would be called the War to End all Wars. 
One by one, reaching adulthood and even before seeing 18 they depart to the front and butchery.
In a boys school two friends feel differently, but inevitably, one because he doesn’t want to be called a coward or a traitor (being of German descent and eighteen), and the other because he cannot conceive of his best friend, his loved one, dying without seeing him again, enlist. 
All the courage and bravado they felt while reading the In Memoriam with the list of the brave boys before them will soon die, along with thousands. It’s not glory they will face but a world of sickness and death, of loss and grief, of trauma and despair. A world they could not in their wildest dreams ever conceive.
Focused on our beautiful love bird boys on a relationship of miscommunication, this book still tells much of the tragedy of WWI especially among the younger boys, their disillusionment with God and Country, their loss of limbs, of face, of mind, of life. It also gives a peek at a world where boys full around with boys when it’s seen as a young boys “thing” but in war it’s a crime to love one another and act upon it.Another of the themes approached is the different ways in which aristocratic kids like these were treated and promoted compared to civil workers.
The love story drives the plot but it is so much more than that, and that depth of feeling, the poetry of love for country, than hate for it, the love for their friends and the grief for the lost ones.
This was one of my favourite books of 2023, and one I won’t forget!
Totally recommend for historical fiction fans, romantic historic fiction, WWI fiction fans, and lgbtqia+ romance fans.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, and Death

Moderate: Homophobia, Suicide, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, and Mental illness

Minor: Antisemitism

kimmag92's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

In Memoriam may be the best book I've read in 2023 and it makes me sad that it's not getting the same traction in North America as it is in the UK as it was absolutely phenomenal.  Winn paints a heart wrenching picture of what the First World War was like for those who fought in the trenches as well as what life was like for gay men at the time.  I spent the whole book worried about what would happen to Ellwood and Gaunt and if they would survive the war.  Besides her depiction of young gay men in the 1910s, she also reminds us how young many of the boys who fought in the conflict were and how it impacted their lives both through what they witnessed as well as through those they lost.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, Gore, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Blood, Bullying, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Outing, Self harm, Vomit, War, Excrement, Colonisation, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide

Moderate: Homophobia