A review by kdawgreads69
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad 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? It's complicated

3.75

this book was so beautiful and i had such an attachment to the main characters, Yale and Fiona. however i feel like it didn’t live up to what alot of ppl said about it. it wasn't as soul crushing as people claimed it was. but it was a really good book. i've seen people compare it to A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and claim it was just as sad, but in my opinion it didn’t live up to that.
you learn on the back that essentially almost all of the characters are gonna die of AIDS so their deaths did not really come as that much of a surprise to me. Plus you didn’t really get that much depth on a lot of the characters that passed away, so i didn't feel really attached to them as i did with A Little Life. the only death that made me emotional was Yale’s because he’s really the only character you get a whole lot of depth on (granted it is from his perspective), and Fionas story was a little sad considering she had hardly anyone left; but despite that this book does not compare in my opinion.
do i think its a valuable, important read? yes i do. is it soul crushing? not really.
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