Reviews tagging 'Death'

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

96 reviews

abaighritz's review

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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: Mass/school shootings, Violence, Animal cruelty, and Death

mrblueskyyy's review

adventurous emotional funny inspiring 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Homophobia

20sidedbi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Holy shit. This is the best book I've... ever? read. I ugly cried at the end. So beautiful, so heartwrenching, so powerful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Homophobia, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Torture, Mental illness, War, Ableism, Animal death, Gaslighting, Grief, Violence, Gun violence, Abandonment, Death, and Racial slurs

jessi_c's review

adventurous challenging hopeful inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.75

A worthwhile Everest of a book. Every bit of the climb is as challenging as people say, but the triumph at the end was worth the journey.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Violence

Moderate: War, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Grief, Death of parent, Death, and Blood

Minor: Child death and Mental illness

lanid's review

adventurous emotional mysterious

• 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gun violence, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Animal death, Xenophobia, and Violence

Minor: Slavery and Homophobia

mcbuckelew's review

adventurous dark inspiring mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Abandonment, and Death

nicoleisalwaysreading's review

challenging emotional reflective 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

giving this one low stars hurts, because All The Light We Cannot See is one of my all-time favorites and I wanted to love this one. Although I loved the idea of the Greek story being the backbone and its entirety appearing in fragments throughout the different narratives, as well as the theme (which I’ll touch on later), the way it all tied together didn’t work for me.

In short, although I usually love a kaleidoscopic narrative, this one fell flat. There were three big twists in my opinion, and they were a) sad (and well, twisted) and b) led to no real character growth.

The two main characters I have issue with were Seymour and Konstance. Seymour as a character felt contrived instead of a truly complex character, and Konstance’s entire storyline ended up being absolutely fucked, and I felt like she had no developed feelings.

I liked Zeno and Anna the best, but I still have some issues with their storylines.

I think the idea of this book is the same as the end of the Barbie movie: to encourage us to see the mess and the imperfections and pain and the overwhelming emotions of life and still say “Yes.” To continue living and feeling and finding the beauty. I do love that theme. But this book just made me feel disappointed. I’m so sorry, Anthony Doerr, you are lovely and I can greatly respect and appreciate the research that went into this one and the homage to books and libraries is a good concept.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mass/school shootings and Death

zoenope's review

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Gun violence

puntifexmaximus's review

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Violence, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Pandemic/Epidemic, War, and Xenophobia

Minor: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Rape, Alcohol, Body shaming, Slavery, Animal cruelty, Death, Death of parent, and Islamophobia

rebeccarudisill's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense slow-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

Epic, sprawling, and mysterious this book highlights everything that is good about books. And about people. Hold onto your pants because this is a wild ride.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Death, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Blood, Animal death, and War

Minor: Homophobia and Suicide