Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

196 reviews

citlalialvrod's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness and Child death

alexhodge's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

5.0

gut wrenching. beautiful writing. inventive stories. emphasis on gut wrenching. this is a book that sticks. it will keep me up at night. i highly recommend it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Terminal illness, Suicide, Child death, Death, and Chronic illness

otakatoe3's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Cancer, Abandonment, Infidelity, Chronic illness, Child death, Death, Racism, Terminal illness, Confinement, and Grief

st_ender's review against another edition

hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Last part sort of let me down but it's still a hit

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Animal death, Medical content, Death, Grief, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Medical trauma and Body horror

Minor: Chronic illness, Confinement, Cancer, Pregnancy, Body shaming, and Suicide

Extensive discussion of euthanasia, and anything that can possibly happen to a person once they die.

hyuzen's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad

5.0

The quality of this book kind of crept up on me. Once it's over and you understand how things are connected it's a beautiful tapestry of vignettes featuring people living in the midst and aftermath of a devastating virus.

Filled with despair and grief in equal measure to hope and premise, this is a challenging read to start. It deals with very heavy subjects relating to death on a macro and micro scale, across all ages. Grief shatters people, shatters relationships. Sometimes the virus only accelerates issues that were under the surface before. But within all that are people seeking connection.

Across the chapters characters and objects reappear, with new perspectives giving new insight and knowledge that makes you want to go back and re-read earlier chapters to appreciate them in new ways.

As an aside, I think this book is a great example of why StoryGraph's review categories seem limiting. Trying to distill this down to whether it's character or plot focused, or whether the characters were loveable just feels like it's missing the point.

But that's beside the point. This was a remarkable read and if you can handle the darkness you'll be rewarded.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death

Moderate: Death of parent, Terminal illness, Death, and Animal death

ladyhunbun's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.75

A really interesting view of individual stories and dynamic characters. I do wish we could have spent more time with some of the characters but liked that we got almost an overhead fire of the world in the aftermath of a pandemic so like our own. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Grief, Child death, Death of parent, Chronic illness, and Death

darkwood's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Suicide

heytaytay12's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

Dark, disturbing, and deeply hopeful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, Terminal illness, Grief, Medical trauma, Blood, Medical content, Suicide, Death, Child death, and Death of parent

baileyes's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

3.25

I can see it being a favorite book for many but it wasn’t really for me 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Suicide, Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Death, Grief, Cancer, Animal death, Violence, Child death, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical content, and Abandonment

musicalpopcorn's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.5

A collection of stories about people connected throughout a plague and its aftermath, How High We Go In the Dark is both dark and hopeful about humanity’s ability to persevere. 

I enjoyed the first half of this book more than I enjoyed the second half, but overall I liked the whole thing. The kind of dark surrealist stories about euthanasia parks and talking pigs were much more interesting to me than the ones that by contrast seemed like normal family dramas. I found all of the stories compelling however I also found that having every single main character feeling detached from their family got a little old after a while and made them feel like the same character every single time. 

This was a unique book with a one of a kind outlook on humanity. How it managed to be both so dark and depressing to ultimately hopeful was very well done. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Cancer, Stalking, Suicide, Animal death, Blood, Colonisation, and Grief