Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

After Annie by Anna Quindlen

3 reviews

stephrand's review

emotional reflective sad medium-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

3.5

Overall a very emotional and sad read. Felt very realistic reading how all of the characters explore and feel grief (spouse, children, best friend, etc). My biggest complaint is that flashbacks popped in and out very quickly and I didn’t love the transitions. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Sexual assault, and Drug abuse

balletbookworm's review

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

To be honest, had I not been reading this book for the book club at my store (which I moderate), I probably would have put this down around 20% complete, wandered off, and just never finished it. I ended up having to pick up the audiobook and listen to it at 2x speed to get through it. This was...fine. I just didn't find the three point-of-view characters to be distinct from each other in tone. Ali didn't even seem like a tween/teen girl, like, what does she like? Not like? Not feel like doing any more because she's sad?? An incredible amount is left unexplored in the Annemarie character. 

I also had an incredibly hard time situating this book in a time period. It felt like Quindlen was trying so hard to make the situation and characters generalizable or perhaps "timeless" that she ended up making them just bland and gray. There are no references to...anything. We eventually get a few bits here and there where you can kind of figure out that it's maybe mid-2010s but we know more about the area (rural, eastern-ish Pennsylvania) because of Annemarie's contacts with the Mennonites and Amish than we do about the three main characters themselves.

And, had I DNF'd at 20%, I would have been spared the use of the Jenny storyline, which I felt was extremely poorly handled, particularly when her older sister shows up out of the blue and trauma dumps in the school counselor's office.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Addiction

Moderate: Child abuse and Sexual assault

It is heavily telegraphed in the text that Ali's "best friend" Jenny is being abused by her father. Although this is implied to be happening off-page, there is one scene where Ali sees Jenny's father enter Jenny's bedroom and get into Jenny's bed just off-screen. Then later Jenny's older sister shows up to give a detailed account of what goes on in her parents' house. This side-plot just kind of ends and, in my opinion, is handled very poorly by the author.

heather425's review against another edition

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Anna Quindlen is a master at character driven stories. After Annie is a master class in showing character growth during adversity. 

The title character, Annie, dies unexpectedly leaving her husband, four children, and lifelong best friend to grieve. The story alternates POV between Bill, the husband; Ali, the daughter; and Annemarie, the best friend. Each have their own internal struggles along with memories of Annie. Quindlen does a fabulous job of showing how grief devastates, but you have to keep living. 

This is a great book for anyone who enjoys a character study. Thank you netgalley for the advanced copy! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Minor: Sexual assault