Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

17 reviews

lilifane's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-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

4.0

What a fascinating concept. I really love these kinds of works. 
This is basically a short story collection in which each story is connected to the others in some way. These might be just little references to things we've read before, or deeper connections you only figure out later. And that's actually my favorite sort of short story collection. 
All of these stories were also connected by recurring themes. Most prevalent life, death and grief. But also love, family and friendship. Additionally, very story was tied to a pandemic outbreak at the beginning of the book and how this event influenced the way people live and die in the future. The stories itself were little glimpses in the lives of their protagonists. We only get to see a small part of a specific time in their lives, and to me, every story felt very personal and intimate. You see how these people struggle, but also change the lives of others around them in small and big ways. 
But it was definitely a very bleak and depressing read for the majority of the book. With a little bit of hope sprinkled into it. It was hard to read sometimes, and it took me longer than expected, just because I needed breaks to do something fun in between the stories. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Suicide, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

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

brynhayes's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Alcohol

ivana's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

4.0

Beautifully written. A lot sadder than I expected, but definitely could have been more queer. As with all books that contain short stories, some were a  bit of a miss and some were really good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Terminal illness, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, and Death of parent

trippalli's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

2.0

A series of vignettes about a world changed my plague I was looking forward to the interesting twists like a comedian working in ideas in Asia hospital but it didn't really follow one plotline It was really just lots of little short stories that jumped around in time in the future and the distant past It even went into space and it did tie them together but it felt loosely tied together and I didn't really fall for feel that any characters were memorable or relatable and sometimes I was just confused about the plot because it got so philosophical and I think there is parts of it set from a coma state but well interesting I struggle to recommend it It was not that interesting to me maybe to others despite all the exciting plot lines none of them really developed anywhere

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Suicide, and Abandonment

daisylady's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Alcohol