Reviews with content warning for Murder - Piranesi

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

163 reviews

alexxm13's review

dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-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

5.0

First of all the parallels between this and “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley is beyond my brain power to wrap around, I will be spending hours on reflecting and contrasting how this masterpiece is so similar to one of my fav classics. Looking for dark academia vibes but its not “the secret history” with overachieving students but also similar to “Frankenstein”’s writing style of scientific characters and agony? Yea this book is for u . Ok before I dive deep into why this book is so good, I will be honest that the first 100ish pages I wanted to dnf it umm not that it was bad it was just at a pace where nothing much was happening and it read like a journal of someone’s that I couldn’t care less about and also I just was not in the mood to read this sort of fiction BUT for the past 2 days I sat down and forced myself continue this and thank fuck I did. I sat outside with the sunset going down in the back with my oversized hoody and after 3 hours I started to rlly enjoy it, things were happening and that moment of “wow this is so powerful” yeah that happened like 10 times while reading it. The last half of this was incredible and made me want to consume it all in one sitting . Okay putting my eng lit brain on and comparing the parallels between the characters; the other (victor Frankenstein) and Piranesi (monster) is just uncanny. u have a mad scientist who just wants to know beyond this one world and what else exists after death and creation of a world and life who legit kidnaps his “friend” as he manipulates him so he can get recognition and feed into his hubris, hamartia if u will (look at me go Shakespeare class) and due to this overly ambitious goals this in end destroys him. Anyways paralleling to victor who is also this drop out student but still wants to continue with his wild research about creation he creates a “monster” due to his ambition to prove his worth. And then the victims; Piranesi who is this clueless man and has been driven to madness for however many years trapped in “the house” who was manipulated by his friend who brought him to this world, just like the monster who is also quite clueless but “misery made me a fiend” and at the end these victims destroy who betrayed them :) . Anyways back to the book, my analysis can pause for now its 11pm and I should just chill my brain but anyways there are so many quotes and themes I adore in this, eg; “the one who will never submit to being driven mad by you” CAN U HEAR ME SCREAM? This is a literal lovers to enemies line and im on the floor because of that because the connection these two characters have is like a stab in the heart and I know when I read “vicious” by ve schwab it will do the same for me ugh . Also I love the mc like he’s so lovely and selfless and the last few chapters made me rlly sad that he can’t remember his family after son long being trapped and he didn’t initially want to go home as he thought this new world is his home, but he was just lied to for years and found these skeletons and looks after them as he is that lonely but im so happy that he was able to find a genuine friend; Raphael who wants what is best for him and not for the sake of fame or money or the greater knowledge which is a key theme I want to expand on more tbh .Was this book initially a 5 star? Absolutely not, before the past 2 days of reading the 2nd half this was going to be a 2 but the angst, the meanings, the quotes, so many things made it a 5 and I 100% recommend for anyone to read this esp for people who want dark academia style books that are not hyped because this deserves love!

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caleb_makes's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

3.75

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lynxpardinus's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective

4.5

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mcmorgan's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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nebraskanwriter's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

bri__'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective relaxing 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? It's complicated

5.0

This book had such an original context, I have never read anything like this and the writing style is very entertaining. The mystery component was interesting and the journal texts were both visually appealing and made it easy to read.

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maeverose's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-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

3.0

This is one of those books that I like more in hindsight after having read it. It has such cool themes and concepts, but while reading it I was a bit bored at times.

My favorite part of the book is actually the beginning when things are still confusing and strange and you’re kinda just going along for the ride. I loved the mystery of not knowing what was going on. I loved the world building of the House. Such a cool setting. The aesthetics of this book as well as Piranesi as a character are probably it’s strongest features imo. The actual mystery reveal fell flat for me.

I liked that it was actually fantasy and not that he was in a coma or something like I thought it might end up being, but idk it just wasn’t as cool as the rest of the book to me. There were also some homophobic insinuations about a specific character that I didn’t like. His being gay was always mentioned in tandem with crimes he committed. And at the end it almost seemed to imply that Piranesi had DID and a new alter had split off, but DID can only be caused by childhood trauma not trauma as an adult, so that kinda irked me. But it never gives him a diagnosis so it could totally just be that he’s ‘generally traumatized’ and that was how the author chose to interpret it, idk.

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