Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Children of Paradise

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova

3 reviews

jankavdm's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-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

This book follows a woman who starts her job at a cinema at the beginning of the book. It follows her challenges that she faces in her workplace, her relationships with her coworkers, the problems that the cinema faces, and lots of love & death.

Honestly, I found this book quite hard to listen to (listened to this book). It was only short, and thank god for that. It made me feel icky and gross, like I was too covered in sticky popcorn physically and emotionally as the main character often is. Thats why I think it's an excellent book, but it will not improve your mood. I read this in the shortest amount of time i've ever read a book, reading for hours at a time just because of how my last couple of days have turned out. That is probably why it made me feel the way it did, because I had spent a lot of time immersed in the book.

In short, this booked was fucked up, and emotional. Feels a bit like too fucked up? So people in the cinema were completely exploited, and this wasn't really discussed for a while of the book, but at the end things changed and my eyes were opened to what happens when something gets taken over by someone who doesn't care, the big chain cinema. Even though the employees were barely making enough to live, they all would've preferred to have the cinema go back to what it was before the big chain came in. It is quite gritty.

Content Warnings

biobeetle's review against another edition

Go to review page

mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

snazzyrhombus's review

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

i was recommended this by my gf because she said it was amazing - at first and even half way through i wasn't super convinced of the hype, the first half is very slow paced and the whole book you essentially live alongside the main character while she works at this cinema, meeting and getting to know the people there. at first i thought nothing super noteable was going to happen throughout the entire book, it was just a slice of life style thing, but then some big events start happening around halfway and the story takes such a dark and gorey turn. from gross customers to gruesome events this book has quite a lot of disgusting elements honestly which was quite interesting.

there are a lot of random horrifying events that are never explained though, kind of frustrating but a cool touch

e.g. the other screen room with the dead naked man in it like what the hell was goinf on there

the last handful of chapters go so so fast especially in comparison to the rest of the book but i think it works well

considering it's representative of the job they all cared for completely transforming into something awful after iris died

and really makes the run up to the finale quite gripping.

i loved the writing style, despite a lot of gross and gorey details so much of it is phrased so beautifully

especially near the end where she imagines cutting down the chandelier and compares it to a big release of tears

something i found kind of weird that may not be intentional is that the main character (and therefore me as the reader) felt so lonely, even when

she made friends with and hung out with the other staff lots, and was sleeping with paolo a lot, you're always so in her head that she feels quite dissociated and isolated

she always seemed to be talking about herself in the present and other people in the past which made her seem super disconnected.

idk if the author was trying to make a point about SOCIETY or just trying to write a whacky book but i do feel like it paints a horrifying picture of the capitalisation of small businesses and how it affects people within the business which is interesting but also extremely sad

i didn't expect the ending to be quite so sad either, kind of leaves you feeling a bit depressed when you finish it honestly, depressed and shocked lol

Content Warnings

More...