Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

45 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.

kmccann3's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

This was really a beautiful read. The writing was lovely and somehow full of hope and humanity in the midst of heartache and death. Somewhat difficult to follow the jumping storyline, which was probably the only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars. Fascinating twist at the end that pulled a lot of the books mysteries together. Would recommend :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Terminal illness

common_nonsense's review

dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, and Grief

bethboo's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I have mixed feelings about this book. It was recommended to me, similar to Cloud Cuckoo Land. I don't know how true that is, since I have never read CCL. This book didn't have a main character. It was a collection of stories from different peoples points of view. Each narrative had certain details that ran through them all or references to past stories. Each one had something to do with human nature in the face of a death focused world. It was interesting and it felt like there was some weight to it because of the pandemic. 
It had a few stories that were just plain weird. Not dark or edgy or different. Just fucking weird, that made me make a face and wish that their narrative would end ASAP. Those kind of took the magic out of the book for me. Like the pig one or the copycat Eternals moment at the end. 
I really enjoyed the story of the guy who worked at the amusement park and fell in love with the mom. I enjoyed the painter's story. The one with the guy working at the print house was sad.
My stars are given for my level of enjoyment, not the inherent worth of the book. So, while the book was very well written with a cast of characters trying to piece their humanity, culture, and image of death together was a wonderful subplot, I found myself bored at moments and a little unattached to certain characters. I'm glad I read it, but it will not be a reread option for me. 

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Medical content and Medical trauma

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

jasminrain's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-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

5.0

I really enjoyed this book! I knew it was dystopian but I was definitely not prepared for the scifi elements that unfolded throughout the story and I absolutely loved it! I also loved how subtly all the stories were connected to one another and going back and forth between the stories trying to connect the stories of different people. As you might expect, not all the stories were equally strong and I'd probably overall rank them from 3-5 stars, but the overall quality of them was overwhelmingly high and I really enjoyed the story that they told about humanity all together. It's definitely a book that you need to reread to make most out of it and I know that I'll return to it someday.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, and Death of parent

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

dnlrbchd's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Terminal illness, Blood, and Medical content

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, and Pregnancy

unsuccessfulbookclub's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

This #PlagueNovelPals book was surprisingly uplifting and in many ways a balm for our current world. It is super dark and sad - it is about a plague brought on by climate change - but it is also about humanity’s ability to persevere, to invent and to eventually overcome. It’s an epic story built through small human interactions. My friend Meg described it as a combination of Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy and Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves and I wholeheartedly agree with that assessment. I would also sprinkle a little bit of Chuck Palahniuk’s macabre zaniness and unlikeable narrators to the mix.

I enjoyed the format for this book - it’s a series of short narratives that are loosely connected rather than a straight through plot. In that way it is quiet and helps you experience the world Nagamatsu built in a very relatable way, through each character’s eyes. The stories end up being more connected than they initially seem but the end and that speaks to a beautiful restraint from Nagamatsu. The writing is impeccable. Each of the characters is interesting and understandable, and you visit many locations and situations on Earth and throughout the universe. I liked that this book was emotionally impactful and dealt heavily with grief and death but it wasn’t gory in the way some books like this are. It’s an emotional sledgehammer but it also puts you back together when it’s done.

👍🏻Recommended! Plague novel/science fiction fans will love this book. Please mind the CW, it is heavy content but in the end it is very hopeful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

hmatt's review against another edition

emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

Little thoughts that I'll have every intention to assemble more later but probably will not:

• I like the idea of a narrative created through short stories where some of the stories intersect, but this wasn't pulled off with 100% effectiveness. Maybe 60%. I was really invested in some stories and just not at all interested in others. I think fewer stories could have achieved the same effect, and I feel like the author could have done a bit more to interweave them. Also, I was a bit out on some of the stories that go off the deep end a bit, including the last one (I wanted to think it was cool, but it felt too convenient and also self-indulgent).
• I commend the choice to use an ensemble cast for the audiobook where the narrators were meant to sound like the (sometimes obviously racialized) POV characters, but some of the chosen narrators were, um, not very good at narrating.
• I remain solidly "pro" on pandemic fiction.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, and Suicide