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aisclaradm's review
5.0
Graphic: Death, Blood, Misogyny, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pregnancy, and Medical content
Moderate: Eating disorder, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, and Sexual content
saintsaens's review
2.0
The poem is very interesting, the search for the woman who first sang it in memory of the assassination of her own husband and the informations found about her are as well, but 80% of the book is more interested with how Doireann Ni Ghriofa is obsessed with being a mother and focused on her own self and her own life.
While slight parallels can be drawn by her very poetic (at times) writing between her experience and the woman she's fascinated by, more often than not it's a digression about herself, her life as a mother and a housewife, her troubles with understanding her husband and her constant need to feel helpful. The first lines are stricking, the rest of the text is inconsistent in writing style at best. And again, the poem has nothing to do with her own self reflection, which is considerably disappointing considering the themes of the poem (passionate love, thriving against social/political pressures, murder and a woman bent on revenge in her husband's name). In contrast, her life is painfully plain. And the text feels imbalanced as a result.
The stars are for the wild poetic lines that are scattered in the text, the information about Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, the text of the poem. Considering what she says in the book, I'm really not partial to her own translation of the poem (how much is artistic licence? how much is her status as a woman speaking? how much is her own knowledge and understanding of the working of Gaeilge? impossible to tell).
The book is described as "feminist". It's feminist in that it speaks about a woman. But honestly, nothing in her words and her behaviour shows a sign of understanding on the feminist movement, or maybe its bare minimum.
Graphic: Medical content, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Medical trauma, and Emotional abuse
She is clearly abusive towards her husband, emotionnaly manipulative and very childish in all other aspects of her life. Everything of those behaviours transpire in her writing even if she doesn't own up to it.cereads's review against another edition
3.75
Graphic: Blood, Medical content, Violence, Grief, Death, Murder, and Pregnancy
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide attempt
qqjj's review
3.5
Graphic: Pregnancy, Murder, Medical trauma, Grief, and Medical content
penofpossibilities's review
4.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Car accident, Animal death, and Grief
Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Murder, and Pregnancy
Minor: Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, Medical trauma, and Medical content
carabones's review against another edition
3.75
Graphic: Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Cancer and Sexual content
laurahedd's review
4.75
Graphic: Death, Pregnancy, and Medical content
lou_o_donnell's review
5.0
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Miscarriage, and Murder
Minor: Cancer, Gun violence, Mental illness, and Religious bigotry
kazkae's review
5.0
Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, and Miscarriage