Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - In Memoriam

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

67 reviews

basil_touche's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I can't remember the last time I had to pause during a book in order to comprehend what I had just read. This novel doesn't hide the gruesome aspects of the war, it's shows it all in detail and even I found it difficult to stomach at times. Characters are introduced and dead within a few pages; some you get to know for huge chunks of the book until suddenly there's a part where you see their obituary or their remains. A lot of topics are covered in this (chivalric mindsets of britain to war pre ww1, queer love, colonalisation, duel identities, classim etc) that it feels like it really captures the period.

But this is also a story about love. Gaunt and Ellwood's relationship throughout is touching as you see them pinning for them in their youth, to their optimism for the war being destroyed once they reach the trenches and then how they slowly start to pick up the pieces after. It's interesting to see how each of their traumas display differently, and surprising too.

I listened to the audiobook and Christian Coulson does a wonderful job throughout. He gives each character a distinct voice, along with pretty accurate accents. I think it truly adds something to the book.

A haunting and beautiful debut for Winn.

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liesthemoontells's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-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

4.75

This is one of the most moving love stories I've read in fiction. Winn's descriptions of yearning and forbidden longing are so tender and raw, and the weight of the characters' situations brought me to tears several times.

The passages describing the war are brutal, visceral, and full of horror, as are the psychological torments inflicted on the men by the inhumanity they are forced to endure.

While the ending of the book is beautiful and hopeful, I really appreciated that the romantic impossibility of Ellwood and Gaunt's reunion didn't offer a panacea for their trauma. Instead, it realistically provided them both with a glimmer of hope that eventually, a normal life could be achieved.

My only (minor) critique of this book is that occasionally the 21st century sensibilities of anti-colonial sentiment felt a little too on the nose coming out of the mouths of British public school boys, but that really is a minor nitpick.

Despite its heavy themes, this book was readable and engrossing.

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lindasoderlundd's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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kelsbng's review

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dark emotional medium-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

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gemin1reader's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad

5.0

I feel like this book ripped my heart in two. It’s a really unflinching look at the brutalities of war entwined with a love story of two boys. It’s beautifully written and heartbreaking, made me cry and will be living in my head for a long time, I think. Although it’s fiction, it really brings the reality of WW1 to life in a very haunting way.

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lizziaha's review against another edition

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Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

I was trying to decide, while I was reading this book, what makes boarding school stories feel so idyllic. I suppose it is the most wonderful version of life: surrounded by friends, intellectual conversations, secrets, sports, homoerotic tension. It’s not all good of course, but every time Elwood quotes a poem, I long for such an existence. But this isn’t a boarding school book exactly. It’s a war book. And it gets gory; the horrors of war are all too present in this book. But more than that, woven into every word of this book is love. There are different kinds: romantic, platonic, familial, love of life, love of country, love of poetry, but everywhere you look, there is love. And there is something captivating about love that persists against all odds. I think that is why I enjoyed the semi-epistolary nature of this book so much. It shows how these characters attempt to bundle that love up and put it into words as much as they can.

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paulawind's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

To be perfectly honest, I expected more of a

kill your gays type of a situation

, especially considering time period,

but I’m so happy I was wrong! The more I think about it, it was the happiest ending that would be realistic in this situation.

We’ll always have Brazil, fuck the Old World.
This book was harrowing. I thought I was ready for the horrors of war after reading All Quiet on the Western Front, but this book only awoke my memories. Why do leaders decide to go to war when it is universally acknowledged that it is only bringing pain and suffering? And we do it all over again, for millennia. Maybe the Greeks got it more, when the war was more about man vs man rather than automated machines against civilians.
Coming to characters, side from them dropping like flies every other chapter, I think the author made us care about every (or almost every) death. The character development for both MCs was absolutely breaking my heart but

I’m so glad they found each other back in the end and are learning to love each other again

An almost complete emotional flip Gaunt and Ellwood did throughout the book hit me like a whiplash, but it was done in a way that it made sense. After all

Gaunt’s prisoners of war camp chapters were the most peaceful and cheerful of the entire book, whereas Elwood was facing bloodbath every day, seeing an orchestrated massacre on a daily basis

One of my favourite moments is when Elwood is screaming poetry at Gaunt, very blatantly professing his love in all meaning but the straightforward one, and Gaunt is so deep in denial that even thought he loved him desperately too, he can’t believe it’s really happening. Those characters in a nutshell. At least for the first part of the book. Later it would be Gaunt being gentle and endlessly patient with Elwood when he struggles to say anything at all and bursting in anger, fighting his ptsd. Gosh, I love those boys so much. Going to pretend that the book ended with “And they lived happily ever after”

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