Reviews tagging 'Schizophrenia/Psychosis '

Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey Into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton

4 reviews

jrwarburton96's review

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

An epic and fascinating story of human survival. Would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys non-fiction stories, and particularly anyone who has an interest in the Golden Age of Polar Exploration.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, and Gore

Minor: Suicide and Alcohol

modernhobbitvibes's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

4.0

I CANNOT find the bookstagrammer who recommended this in a video, but shout out to them, this was kind of a banger.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Terminal illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Confinement, Mental illness, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Violence and Gore

Minor: Racism, Colonisation, and Suicide

Entire book is about survival situations in extreme conditions, including the risk of death by starvation/freezing and explicit death by drowning. There is also discussion of the effects of global warming in the author's notes.

not_another_ana's review against another edition

challenging dark informative tense slow-paced

4.75

Only two things were certain: it would get colder, and it would get darker.

An account of a little known Antarctic expedition, the triumphs they achieved and all the calamities and horrors they had to endure during the long polar night. It's the end of the 19th century and there's still a couple of wild places unconquered by men, one of them being the Antarctic. While the Arctic had seen its fair share of famous (and tragic) expeditions, until then the southernmost continent had remained practically untouched. Enter Adrien de Gerlache, a young Belgian navy officer with a dream and an unquenchable thirst for adventure. Putting together an expedition for scientific purposes, and the glory of the then new nation of Belgium, he embarked on a voyage that would prove fruitful yet dangerous and disturbing.

Incredibly engaging and well narrated story. I was hooked from the very beginning and desperate to know more. As a modern person it is hard to imagine what the crew of this ship went through for almost two years, completely trapped and separated from the rest of the world, but the author does an upstanding job at creating the ambience and putting the situation in perspective. You can tell this was a well researched labor of love, that Julian Sancton was fascinated with all the little details that make up this story.  Not only was the situation captivating and terrorific, but the actual people who lived through this were engaging, intelligent, flawed and deeply human. The use of the diaries in this book was masterfully done and really connected me with the men trapped in the ice. 

While I think it all flows quite nicely and it is easy enough to get into, some of the heavy sailing and ship terminology did fly over my head quite a bit. I never felt like it dragged, but it certainly required concentration and imagination to be able to wrap my head around the scale of the situation. I also read this while on a cruise ship and I very much recommend it, it gave the book an extra atmosphere and added to the horror of it all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Medical content, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

mondovertigo's review

adventurous dark informative tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Death, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Confinement, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Animal cruelty

Minor: Child death and Death of parent