Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - The Heart's Invisible Furies

WOW. This book was one of my top favorites of the year. It is beautiful, emotional, heart wrenching, heart warming, and will make you FEEL. An incredible story that follows the life of one Irish man, yet still immersed you in the lives of many others. I fell in love with this book almost immediately and immensely, so much that I didn’t want to finish it. I will recommend it to fellow book lovers.
If you are able make it past the content warnings, I believe this book will move your heart and soul.

Content Warnings

ludwijag's review

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-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? No

4.5

Content Warnings

wellreadmegs's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

This one I'm really struggling to rate. I really didn't like the first 300 pages of this book but I do feel like the last 250 pages redeemed it and it had a strong ending - which counts for something. But I found the beginning of the book extremely crude and chaotic. I don't consider myself someone who is easily offended or prudish but the language used and the way the characters described women and sex were very vulgar - and not in the smutty way.

If you could get passed all of that - I do think there were some really impactful parts of the book. I struggled to feel like this was believable at times because of the amount of traumatic things that happened to Cyril and the close people in his life so often. Did I think all of those things could happen yes - did I think they could happen to one person in one lifetime? Not particularly. That made it hard to stay in the story.

Once Cyril went to Amsterdam though I found the book really coming into its own. I was clearly interested enough to see what happened at the end but it was a struggle to get through at times. The ending was lovely and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book - I would just power through the first bit of the book if you want to fully enjoy it!

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books_withblooms's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

kersley's review

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emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

If a book made me cry during reading, it’s an instant 5 stars. What do I rate a book that made me ugly cry several times…

“The years apart will feel like nothing compared to what we have before us”

Also, it moved me a little to see my country being mentioned casually in the book (Mauritius) ♥️

Content Warnings

snwalsh's review

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-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? Yes

4.0

This book is amazing. I loved the voice, and even though I didn't really care about Cyril's life at first, he grew on me. Cyril is a flawed character, that hurts and gets hurt by others, but fundamentally he just wants to live a good life. I think the only thing that gives me pause about this book is all of the "coincidences". I feel like they were just gotcha moments that weren't well thought out, and were ways to bring characters together without having an organic way of putting them together. It felt very passive, and unbelievable, which seemed to be the opposite of the lessons that Cyril learned in his life (not being passive, working for what you want, being transparent, etc). Otherwise it's an incredible book.

Content Warnings

juliaureads's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

I was really skeptical, considering all the hype around this book, but it got me in the end.

What can I say that hasn't already been said? Wonderful writing, fantastic characters. Could have done with a faster pace, but that's purely personal preference.

The epilogue got me in the end, don't worry.

Content Warnings

brynngaybee's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

I read this on the recommendation of my manager who said it was her favorite book and I had to read it, while I am not quite sure it lived up to the hype I certainly enjoyed it a lot! I didn't care that much about the childhood parts but they were mostly funny enough. I liked a lot of the adult stuff more, although the characters drove me crazy sometimes. It was very sad but some other parts of the book were funny. My manager said it was similar to A Little Life which I have not read yet, but still may be a good option for fans of that book. There is a lot of coincidences and quite a bit of death and wild events going on. I am here for the drama, but it may not be for everyone. The way all the characters were interconnected was interesting to me, but it did not seem very realistic, depends on what you care about in a story I suppose. Overall, very well written and emotional.

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