Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney

7 reviews

gnothiseauton's review against another edition

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challenging dark 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

3.75

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marabender's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was an amazing novel, and also the saddest book I have read in a long time. Worth the read, but make sure you’re in an ok head space to start it. 
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lucesandin's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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smithy361's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This book is too gritty for my taste, but the author wasn’t afraid to show the underbelly of a city suffering from the economic collapse in 2008. 
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fionac326's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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amylav's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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deedireads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

Brutal, raw, and incredibly told, The Glorious Heresies will grab your heart when you’re not looking and then crack it wide open. I can see why it won so many prizes.

For you if: You read literary fiction that examines what it means to be human in a way that’s hard to look away from.

FULL REVIEW:

“He left the boy outside its own front door. Farewell to it, and good luck to it. From here on in it would be squared shoulders and jaws, and strong arms and best feet forward. He left the boy a pile of mangled, skinny limbs and stepped through the door a newborn man, stinging a little in the sights of the sprite guiding his metamorphosis. Karine D’Arcy was her name.”

^^ So begins The Glorious Heresies, which I read as part of the #ReadingWomen challenge; it won the Women’s Prize in 2016. And with opening lines like that, it’s easy to see why.

The book introduces us to several characters who become randomly interconnected when an older woman hits an intruder in the head, killing him, and her mobster son makes it disappear for her. Our characters are the woman, her son, the dead man’s girlfriend (who is a prostitute), and her teenage her drug dealer, and his father, who is also the man whom the mobster hired to help dispose of the body. Keeping up? lol.

Anyway, what Lisa McInerney has done in this novel is extraordinary in that I didn’t realize how attached I was to the characters until my heart was breaking wide open for them. And once the gutting started, it didn’t stop. These characters are imperfect and struggling and they have a lot of trauma. They’re not particularly good people, but she shows the nuggets of good in their hearts that make you want them to all just live happily ever after, for goodness sake. Ryan — the son/drug dealer — got me the hardest. Literally my heart hurts just thinking about him.

This is very, very much a character-driven plot. It doesn’t race ahead, and yet it’s propulsive nonetheless. Expertly crafted and beautifully rendered, as they say. As one who wins the Women’s Prize does.

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Child abuse; Hard drug and alcohol usage; Alcoholism; Abortion; Rape
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