Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

17 reviews

nicola_scutt's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad fast-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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty

Moderate: Suicide, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Mental illness

Minor: Racism, Abortion, War, Self harm, Addiction, and Alcoholism

wellyreads's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? No

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Death, Death of parent, Addiction, Alcohol, and Mental illness

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Abortion and Abandonment

josh_mza's review

dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

3.25

A captivating irony of a dysfunctional immigrant family trying to piece together what it means to live. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Death of parent, Animal cruelty, and Suicide

Minor: Abandonment, Medical trauma, Pandemic/Epidemic, Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Addiction

belleanndthebook's review

dark reflective sad

3.0

After a few months worth of distance from this book. I can finally elaborate on my feelings towards it: This book creates a scenario with one set of expectations and then pivots and explores other themes almost entirely. 

 

This book sells itself, both in the synopsis and the prologue, as a book that explores how knowing the date of one’s death shapes one’s life, a book thematically about—what I will attempt to summarize in one word as—mortality. However, immediately when we jump forward to the first sibling's perspective, the book begins to centrally explore another theme: grief. The siblings’ father dies, triggering the characters to begin thinking about death and thus begins the events of the story. Initially, the addition of this theme makes sense due to the proximity of mortality and death (and thus grief). However, the rest of the book very quickly becomes very repetitive. 

 

The lives of the siblings become increasingly shaped mainly by grief as opposed to exploring how they grapple with their mortality. All of the siblings essentially struggle against their mortality and die in the exact same way

(self-sabotage and recklessness)

, and, until the literal climactic conclusion of the book, no other possibility of dealing with mortality is portrayed. 

 

Thus, a book that I picked up expecting it to explore how people live their lives in the face and in spite of their inevitable mortality, actually turned out to be a book exploring grief, death, and dying over and over again without much meaningful variety. Don’t get me wrong, there was some  merit in the siblings' stories individually and in the other themes explored; however, I think that many are going to find this book disappointing because the set-up in no way matched the pay-off.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Grief, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Hate crime, and Addiction

Minor: Homophobia

mcclintock1808's review

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? Yes

2.75

The concept of The Immortalists initially drew me to the book in the first place, and while I still enjoy the concept of it, I don't think it was executed the best. The story is in four sections following four siblings, and some fell flat. Simon's was a good story; it follows and deals with both inner and outer problems. It did get a bit too descriptive with his love life for my taste, but nothing against the book. Klara's perspective was the best in my opinion. Her struggles, dreams, hopes, and desires all meshed into one was perfectly told. Daniel's was the worst. He was stoic, and I didn't understand his character arc at all, it seemed so random and just used as a plot device. Although Varya's was better, it wasn't great. It did incorporate important themes, but it did so randomly and more things just seemed thrown in as plot devices. The only other thing that struck me as odd, was how every child came to either resent, disagree or look badly upon their religion. I understand a change in beliefs, but it just seemed odd that religion was displayed so negatively in the entire book. Overall, the book covers important themes and is very interesting to reflect back upon life and death, and how people should be living. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Misogyny, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Alcoholism, and Death

mijamouse's review

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Terminal illness, Death, and Suicide

Minor: Abortion, Addiction, and Sexual content

erinfitzharris's review

dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Alcoholism, Addiction, Mental illness, Sexual content, and Suicide

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Abortion

cyntismiles's review

emotional mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.5

I really liked this book! It was recommended by one of my coworkers, I thought I read it but I hadn't so gave it a go!

I really liked the amount of time we spent with each character and how the author chose the timeline focus for each one. After the first section, I thought we were going to go "back to the beginning" with each one and redo all the events through their eyes. We did not and I was grateful. I found the scope of each character very artfully chosen and well done. I also enjoyed the "mystery" of the book and seeing how it affected each character. 

I really liked how you could tell they were all siblings but at the same time so different. It felt very real to me. There was one specific trait all the characters had that felt very "off" to me but it was resolved in the end which I really enjoyed. I'll add it in the spoiler section if you are curious.  

All the characters consistently acted like they were the only people who had ever experienced family tragedy which was annoying. It took me until Clara's section to identify it esp. in regards to how she responded to her husband. I think it sheds a good light on moving forward with grief vs stagnating in grief. I was really happy to see this somewhat resolved in Varya's section

 

I was super sucked into this book and wanted to find out what would happen to each character. I was most interested in Varya's chapter/perspective so it was kind of a "save the best for last" situation for me. There was a lot of discussion of mental illness in this book and I thought it was done really well. 

I would recommend if you are looking for an accessible novel that asks questions about the placebo effect, human nature, and self-fulfilling prophecy. It's interesting and reflective on the human condition and what we are all inevitably moving towards, death.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Eating disorder, Addiction, Xenophobia, Suicide, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, and Racism

acasiamae's review

emotional mysterious sad 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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Mental illness, and Sexual content

Moderate: Addiction

Minor: Gun violence, Abortion, Homophobia, War, and Murder

desiderium_incarnate's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective 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

3.5

Simon, Klara, Daniel und Varya - 
das Leben der vier Geschwister wird in diesem Buch nacheinander dargestellt. Alles beginnt mit dem Tag, an dem sie ihren Todestag erfahren. Eine einschneidende Erfahrung für die Kinder damals, die sie ihr ganzes Leben begleitet. Es werden glaubhaft dynamische Familienbande gezeigt, der Einfluss von Religion und Spiritualität auf das Leben wird behandelt und Sexualität und mentale Gesundheit wird angesprochen. Dir zentrale Diskussion jedoch, die ebenfalls gen Ende sehr elegant direkt in den Text eingewoben wird, ist, Leben vs. Überleben. Wie verhält man sich im Angesicht seines eigenen Ablebens? Geht man lieber auf Nummer sicher und versucht die Zukunft doch noch etwas zu beeinflussen oder nimmt man die Zeit, die man hat und macht das beste draus? Lieber im Jetzt leben oder im Potential der Zukunft? 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Infidelity, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Abortion, Addiction, Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Antisemitism, Body horror, Confinement, Death of parent, Death, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Excrement, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Racism, Self harm, Terminal illness, Violence, and Vomit