Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

11 reviews

lindasoderlundd'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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Bullying, Child death, Suicide, War, Blood, Homophobia, Alcohol, Cursing, Mental illness, Violence, Medical content, and Sexual content

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, Classism, Colonisation, Miscarriage, and Antisemitism

lizziaha's review against another edition

• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Blood, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, War, and Gore

Moderate: Alcohol, Classism, Ableism, Racism, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Antisemitism, Confinement, Homophobia, Bullying, and Sexism

Minor: Suicide, Colonisation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

paulawind's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Colonisation, Homophobia, Sexual violence, Chronic illness, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Rape, Alcoholism, Body horror, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Murder, Misogyny, Addiction, Child abuse, Cursing, Drug use, Medical content, War, Vomit, Sexual content, Alcohol, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, and Racism

willow_thewisp's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, War, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Violence, Colonisation, Confinement, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Alcohol, Body horror, Child death, Classism, Death, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Self harm, and Suicide

lottykarottie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Death, Alcohol, Colonisation, Cursing, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Blood, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gun violence, Homophobia, Medical content, Medical trauma, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, and Rape

lealula's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, War, Mental illness, Grief, Gore, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Colonisation, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Alcoholism

Minor: Suicide

kimmag92's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

In Memoriam may be the best book I've read in 2023 and it makes me sad that it's not getting the same traction in North America as it is in the UK as it was absolutely phenomenal.  Winn paints a heart wrenching picture of what the First World War was like for those who fought in the trenches as well as what life was like for gay men at the time.  I spent the whole book worried about what would happen to Ellwood and Gaunt and if they would survive the war.  Besides her depiction of young gay men in the 1910s, she also reminds us how young many of the boys who fought in the conflict were and how it impacted their lives both through what they witnessed as well as through those they lost.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, Gore, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Blood, Bullying, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Outing, Self harm, Vomit, War, Excrement, Colonisation, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide

Moderate: Homophobia

aedavison's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This novel was absolutely gorgeous. Poignant and heart wrenching. In Memoriam was one of the most beautiful novels I have ever read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, War, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Blood, and Homophobia

Minor: Colonisation and Classism

katie_11's review against another edition

emotional hopeful sad 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

I loved this book! As queer fiction set against the backdrop of WWI goes, there was so much hope and love to be found in the writing. It is as much a love story as it is about the war, and personally I loved that it didn't focus too heavily on homophobia or what I feel may have been slightly unrealistic attitudes to gay relationships at that time in British history. I also thought the ending was perfect and tragic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide and Alcoholism

Minor: Antisemitism, Colonisation, and Homophobia

mint_the_muffin's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC for an honest review.

There's probably a poem for this feeling inside me out there somewhere but not in my head, which is utterly empty and numb.

This book. What a masterpiece.

I've read many fictions about wars. Depending on the author's prose and the theme of the story, the same war can be portrayed with different focuses and in different ways. But I've never read a version of WWI that is as bleak, gloomy, heart-wrenching, and horrific as this book. In this story, we follow a bunch of English boys in an elite boarding school. When we first met them, they were spoiled, annoying, boyishly gallant, and so, so full of life. They spent their days squandering money, hitting each other, writing bad poems, and their greatest agony in life was catching feeling for their friend. After all, homosexuality was still illegal in England at the time. Still, to the boys, England was the best nation in the world that should rightfully colonize everyone else, and these boys just can't wait to be in the front line, fighting for their country, becoming the heroes they only ever read about in classics and romantic poems.

And then, one-by-one, they eventually enlisted, and what followed was the kind of horror unlike anything they ever imagined. The story did not shy away from the most graphic depiction of any kinds of violence. The prose is at times very matter-of-fact and dry, which somehow makes the truth more truthful and hits that much harder. Alice Winn is a genius at using different types of proses and formats to construct the roller coaster of emotions in this story. The juxtaposition between the straightforward facts and the flowery poems gave me whiplash. The meaningful switches from standard narration to letters to newsletter managed to condition me to hold my breath in dread. It was frightfully immersive to look through the list of the deceased and wounded with one eye closed, praying that the characters you care for had not died.

Despite the immersive setting, this book is very character-driven. And it's a testament to the author's amazing skill when every character she crafted broke my heart one way or another. The protagonists, Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood, had been best friends and mutually pining after each other for so many years. Their relationship, like everything else, is affected by the war and their traumas. Their emotions are ugly, their yearning raw, and their love seemingly pointless. But theirs is a love story amidst hatred, of gentleness amidst violence. It is all the ugliness that makes their story beautiful. I love them both so, so much.

I don't know how to talk about the supporting characters without having a breakdown. This book didn't turn me into a sobbing mess, but it carved a total void in my heart where some characters - even those that only appears for a half chapter - had been alive and then gone. It's the first time I understand that, if I can still cry because of a book, then I'm quite alright, because when I'm truly devastated, there's only silence, which was what happened when I turned the last page of this book. The war and the characters have all felt so real, so close. I don't think I've fully come out of it yet. And I don't know if I ever will. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, War, Grief, Death, and Homophobia

Moderate: Suicide, Antisemitism, Classism, Colonisation, and Racism