Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Ett år av vila och avkoppling by Alva Dahl, Ottessa Moshfegh

222 reviews

joeraine's review against another edition

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medium-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

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leavemejoy's review against another edition

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dark reflective 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

quite the odd book. the unnamed narrator’s goal to essentially hibernate for an entire year is an intriguing concept for a novel. the “plot” itself is a bit boring and repetitive in the beginning, but it picks up towards the middle. slow, but well-paced. outlandish stories like this can easily turn me off, but there was a point to be made with all the chaos, so it worked. the narrator is as compelling as she is insufferable. i see why a lot of people like and don’t like this book; being a character driven narrative, it hinges on you finding her and her relationships enjoyable to read about. her unlikeable personality worked for me as there was a clear purpose to it, but i can see why it did not work for others. the relationship between the narrator and reva was the heart of the novel. i kept reading just to get to more scenes of them together. i liked picking up on the several ways they foil each other and how their dynamic portrays the novel’s more interesting themes.

some (glaring) issues that keep this from being a full 4 stars: the majority of the comedy fell flat for me, apart from two bits that i remember laughing at. the narrator’s tangents about whoopi goldberg were especially unfunny and a little uncomfortable to read at times. as this was advertised as a “dark comedy”, i was disappointed. i also HATED the psychiatrist (i don’t even remember her name). i understand her purpose and why she’s necessary, but her character and dialogue irritated me. lastly, the ending was surprisingly underwhelming given what happens and all the foreshadowing that leads up to it. perhaps this was the point, but my thoughts remain the same.

a cool idea executed somewhat successfully, and it was an enjoyable and entertaining read overall.


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nhacco's review against another edition

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

1.75

I tried. I really did try to like this or to find in it something deep and layered. I tried to focus on the depression aspect of it, to connect and relate to the main character who is clearly depressed. But this book was really hard to get through. It’s short but it’s still too long. For the first half, it felt like the author just decided to see how many random stories that made no sense she could come up with, in order to impress you with how hot and thin and lacking in empathy the main character is. It’s really exhausting and zero percent interesting. If anything, it made me feel like her - bored and completely immune to feeling anything (while reading). 
Then the second half is really just very long paragraphs of sentences and memories and imagery and thoughts the main character has, but it’s not the least bit interesting because this character is not interesting. Being edgy and mean and detached is not interesting. It felt mainly like the author just wanted an excuse to indulge her own thoughts and ideas, thinking they would be of any interest to anyone else. 
And the story has no point. Just a
privileged girl that is bored with life so decides to give herself an addiction to sleeping pills to sleep for days at a time and black out and do things while out of it for months that she can’t remember (so we have no idea what happens) and then wakes up and feels like a normal person at last
. Extremely uninteresting and with no moral or point whatsoever. I thought this was going to be about a girl going on an eat pray love year lol
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kirtreads's review against another edition

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reflective 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

3.25

I am not quite sure what all the hype is on this one. I spent the whole book waiting for anything interesting to happen and it really didn't. The ending of the book was a let down. The main character is insufferable, her best friend is also annoying. I get that this is supposed to be a look at the way that we deal with grief and trauma but it was just not doing it. The crazy psych was the best part about this book. This was just not it for me. 
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shakirajain's review against another edition

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

4.0

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whoisthlsbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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littleseal's review against another edition

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- My dumbass thinking Infermiterol was really a medication (I am a therapist that knows some medications but clearly was "tricked" to think this was, lol)
- There is something so interesting about the writing that it was hard to put down sometimes
- I knew, <i>knew</i> what the ending was going to be;
The book was set in 2000, and knew it'd go into 2001 and it would relate back to 9/11
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ktc97's review against another edition

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

4.5

I had previously read another Moshfegh and didn’t love it, but was so pleasantly surprised by this one. I feel like Moshfegh’s strengths shine through when her dark writing is accompanied by some relief. This one had a ton of hilarious satire and a compassionate message at the end. 
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bethjg_01's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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bellsdixon's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense fast-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

4.25

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