Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

20 reviews

craigpwmoroney's review

challenging emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Child death

Moderate: Colonisation, Classism, Gaslighting, and Grief

Minor: War

jodar's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• 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

3.5

The novel explores themes of family love and of heart-breaking loss that tears families apart. The MCs face terrible moral dilemmas upon which they stumble because of their almost tragedy-like virtues. The characters and dialogue are well-crafted and believable, notable given this is the author’s first novel. There are some genuinely moving, emotionally charged passages throughout the story.

And yet… I found some of the plot a little too tidy in places, a bit too melodramatic. And at times the characters felt almost stereotypical and uncomplicated; the feeling that “this is exactly how this dramatis persona would think, speak and act ”.

Further, the male MC holds some grim, cynical philosophical attitudes to life:

A life had come and gone and nature had not paused a second for it. The machine of time and space grinds on, and people are fed through it like grist through the mill. (Chapter 10)

and:

Years bleach away the sense of things until all that’s left is a bone-white past, stripped of feeling and significance. (Chapter 37)

and:

Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story is just an unvisited headstone. (Chapter 37)

These thoughts are, I suppose, understandable in light of his experience, though it is difficult to see how such a view didn’t darken his interactions with other people more significantly.
And the authorial voice, too, comments of the society:

History is that which is agreed upon by mutual consent.
  That is how life goes on – protected by the silence that anaesthetises shame. (Chapter 17)

So yes, it is a story of love and grief and of love reclaimed despite the loss and tragedy, but in the end it feels to me to be a story of ultimate despair.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Child death, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Infertility, Xenophobia, War, Cancer, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Sexual harassment, Vomit, Confinement, and Alcohol

tinkerbell01's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Infertility, Grief, and Miscarriage

hanngigi's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Miscarriage, and Child death

Moderate: War and Death of parent

Minor: Cancer, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

honeyenbee's review

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

• 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Child death, Infertility, Death, War, and Miscarriage

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, Cancer, Suicide, Alcoholism, and Vomit

ginasalerni's review

emotional hopeful slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death

jmsully's review

emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

One of my reading goals this year is to read more of my physical TBR, this was the first book I chose. 
And unfortunately I definitely had an extremely difficult time reading this and at times I found it so boring that I had force myself to read it. Towards the middle of the book there were areas that were more interesting however I felt like they quickly turned boring again

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Miscarriage, and Child death

mladd28's review

adventurous emotional sad tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Child death, and Abandonment

Moderate: War and Death

obxhokie's review

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Child death, and Kidnapping

danajoy's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Infertility, Child death, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Mental illness, Kidnapping, Grief, War, Medical trauma, and Suicide