Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

94 reviews

hazmatzo's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Grief, and Death of parent

There might be a deeper meaning, but this is essentially about death. It’s about mass death, for sure, as the story revolves around a pandemic — which is why it’s compared to Station Eleven — but the focus in the story, is mostly on individual people saying goodbye to their loved ones. Almost all perspectives were from those who lived as opposed to those who were dying. However, there was at least one perspective from someone who was dying, which gave an interesting perspective on the pandemic. The book a bunch of interconnected short stories threaded together by the pandemic, giving you a 360 view on everything that happened from a collection of minor perspectives. My favorite two stories were the one revolving around the spaceship and the last story of the book. My least favorite was the second chapter, which revolved around a “death carnival”, which I had to skip in order to not DNF the book.

My issue with that chapter in particular is that I feel like when children die, they want more than anything to be touching their parents, and it made me mad, but also feel like the concept proposed in the chapter where they children would die without their parents on a rollercoaster seemed unrealistic as an emotional solution and broke my suspension of disbelief because of that.

The prose and writing style are a whole vibe. It makes you feel cosmically reflective. Though the major concepts in this book include grief and processing death, with a few exceptions it was fairly easy to read. The stories started with the certainty of death, and because they were bite-sized character stories, it allowed me to intellectualize the grief and tragedy from afar.

viireads's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Stalking, and Pregnancy

Minor: Animal death, Death, Drug use, Suicide, Murder, and War

lilacwhisker's review against another edition

emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

A must-read. My new favorite book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction and Abandonment

danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Beautiful, emotional, sometimes funny, Kafka-esque, and existential. This book is about love, death, the need for human connection; about the failures of capitalism and hope that humanity will find a way to chart a better future. This is one of those books that will have me thinking for a long time. 

To call it a novel I think is somewhat of a misnomer. It’s kind of a strange love child between a novel and a short story collection. But the stories are all interwoven and take place against the backdrop of a singular uniting event. This structure also drives home one of the themes of the book, which is the ways in which we form human connection, sometimes unexpectedly. Sometimes the narrator from a previous chapter will pop up as a side character in another person’s chapter and we get updates on their life, which was also always welcome.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, and Medical trauma

pancaaakes's review against another edition

I really really wanted to like this more… and I really did like some parts. At times it felt so profound and the messages were spot on. And then others… I don’t know. I just got kind of bored, and the characters were just meh for the most part. Maybe I just don’t like the vignette style, and I didn’t know going in that it was written like this. Also the overwhelmingly male presence as narrators just got annoying. I didn’t really like any of the characters and the talking pig was just so out there it wasn’t believable. and I don’t mind darker topics at all, I just had a hard time liking this book in particular.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, and Death

Moderate: Medical content and Grief

nee_cole's review against another edition

dark hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Suicide, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Grief

oaxara's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Grief

Moderate: Animal death, Chronic illness, Suicide, and Death of parent

elzbethmrgn's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

1.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Animal death

cbaker's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Grief

tifcochran's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Death of parent