Reviews with content warning for Violence - In Memoriam

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Reviews tagging 'Violence'

catorureads's review

challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

This book does not romanticize war, yet it shows us how we can find love even in the cruelest places.
While this book is disturbing and sad, I found the moments that will haunt me the most are the smallest little things. The In Memoriam pages in the newspaper. When you see 16 years old next to a name of a boy in the list of killed in action. When people who're both German and English are forced to fight against their kin.

The thing that will keep lingering in my mind however, is the very last page of this book. Without spoiling, it's another newspaper article of 10 November 1918. I think that says enough.

I did not cry but it was a very brutal book so make sure you're in the right headspace to read this.

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laurennicole98's review

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dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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kiwialexa's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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lc_27's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Cannot stop thinking about this book and the characters. So good. I can't put into words how much I love it!

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whatnovareads's review

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adventurous 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

4.5

Oof [hand on chest & deep exhale] ❤️‍🩹

When I started reading In Memoriam, I never thought I would stay up until the early hours of the morning to finish reading it- for me that's a huge deal! This is heartbreaking, harrowing, beautiful and epic.

I learnt so much about boys' public schools, conscription (and white feathers), the hierarchy of officers during war (and how unjustly titles were allocated) and the brutalities of the First World War - even poetry.

I regularly forgot how young the soldiers were. The atrocities of war forced them to grow up quickly, oftentimes i imagined the main characters as grown men but was reminded they were teenagers and the gut punch worsened when i read the Roll of Honour in the Preshutian. These were school boys going to war, lambs to the slaughter.

I was keen to know how the love story between Gaunt and Ellwood would develop, would they "make it" or not? What can I say?

I love true love, I love enduring love.

I usually find a good quote from the book to summarise the main theme but in this instance there are too many. The writing is simply beautiful- elegant. I can’t believe this is a debut novel! I would encourage everyone who reads this book to also read the Author’s Note - it’s fascinating.

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danielrch's review

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-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

5.0

The most touching, affecting book I've read in a long time. The two main characters - Gaunt and Ellwood - are so colourfully put together you sometimes forget they're not real. Two young men from a reputable public school in pre-WW1 Britain are thrust into a conflict for which they're far too young. Winn has a talent for character, and she makes you feel everything they go through.

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iftheshoef1tz's review against another edition

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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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