Reviews tagging 'Death'

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

7 reviews

mattyvreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.25

I mean…. Here’s the thing. I think it’s a really good book. It is definitely not for me. 

I found huge pockets of this book to be unfathomably boring, and then suddenly hugely interesting. I think a lot of the writing is sort of inaccessible and a little dense. Then it is captivating and very moving. 

I was greatly intrigued by the themes of connection discovered through exploring these vastly different stories with seemingly uncommon circumstances, and then learning about their commonalities. I was also intrigued by the motif of “kairos”, and fleeting movement. Those themes really worked for me.

I thought the ending would deliver something more powerful, but

if time isn’t linear, then maybe that wasn’t the ending. Ooooooo…..

Idk. Kind of boring overall.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Violence, Chronic illness, Alcoholism, Dementia, Colonisation, War, Body horror, Misogyny, Suicide, Death, and Medical content

angela_iseli's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, and Medical content

spooderman's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Slavery, Terminal illness, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child death, Deportation, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, War, Abandonment, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, and Medical content

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Religious bigotry, Trafficking, Cancer, Infidelity, Xenophobia, Ableism, Islamophobia, Pandemic/Epidemic, Panic attacks/disorders, and Racism

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Mass/school shootings, Rape, Transphobia, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Cultural appropriation, Drug use, Eating disorder, Genocide, Hate crime, Addiction, Antisemitism, Vomit, Dysphoria, Pedophilia, Incest, Racial slurs, and Sexism

kmhst25's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content

Moderate: Blood and Death

Minor: Dementia and Toxic friendship

catandherbooks's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

I almost wanted to DNF this one but I ultimately decided to continue and finish it. The themes it contains are very interesting and I do like the writing, it's just that... I don't know if it is the writing itself or even the structure of the pages of this particular edition (font, spacing, margin size, etc) but it felt so dense?? I'm not sure if I'll remember any of it in a few days but I'm happy I finished it. Hopefully my next Tokarczuk will provide a better reading experience. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death

savvylit's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

The fragmented nature of Flights made it a more difficult, time-consuming read for me than the books I usually gravitate towards. Reading this felt like reading an art piece. I saw Flights described somewhere as a collage and I think that's incredibly accurate. Flights is a collage of short stories, letters, journal entries, maps, and ruminations. Just when you're invested in what happens to the characters in one of the many vignettes, it's over and you find yourself at a paragraph about the validity of guidebooks. The sudden changes of pace often felt jarring and disjointed and were what made Flights a bit of a slog for me.

My favorite thing about the book, though, is how evocative it is of the anonymity of international travel. There were so many segments of this book that took me back to my own travels and the very specific feeling that you belong nowhere and everywhere at once. Transit stations and airports truly have a liminal quality that I've never seen captured as well as Tokarczuk has in Flights.

My least favorite thing about the book was the pages on pages describing plastination. I am just not at all interested in the methods used during / the art form of preserving anatomical specimens. There was a point in my reading where I thought I would go insane if I read one more description detailing the composition of a preserved human body part.

Ultimately, I picked this book to read after Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead became one of my favorite books of 2021. In Flights, Tokarczuk's prose is still as exceptional as I found it to be in DYPOBD. However, the two books could not be more different! Which is perfectly alright, just not what I'd initially hoped for. I think I just really wanted to read another Toakrczuk book that followed a more traditional narrative structure. Alas.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

hannah_sakura's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

• 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Medical content, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Miscarriage