Reviews with content warning for Terminal illness - How High We Go in the Dark

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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foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional 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

4.25

This novel is a collection of short vignettes, following interconnected characters through their experiences with dying and death, of the people and animals around them and of the world.

I’ve been sitting on this review for awhile because I’ve needed to collect myself and my thoughts after this depressing read. Almost grotesque in its depictions of grief, I found myself crying in horror at almost every chapter. This book reminded me a lot of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, but even more bleak and realistic.

Overall, I think this book adds something interesting to the sci-fi genre in its speculations about death industries, and to be able to give impactful characterizations in just one chapter each is impressive. I’d recommend this book to those who like well-written books that will make you feel emotionally intense, and who find medical/sci-fi/space to be intriguing.

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sgrunwald96's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

The first 5 star book I’ve read that I’m not sure I’ll read again. Brutally sad and deeply relatable in our late-capitalism, post-pandemic world. It seems so close to where we could have gone if things had gotten worse. I liked the story linkages and the unique storylines. It felt like a good reminder of how many first-person perspectives there are, even when tragedy blurs people into statistics.

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jalexand's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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jesssicawho's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

This was a beautiful collection of intertwined stories that don’t quite come together until the last chapter. Heavy themes of grief, loss, loneliness, hope, family, and love set against the backdrop of a suffering planet.

Some stories spoke to me more than others. Some parts were ridiculous (like the

theme park to euthanize dying children)

. But the book make me feel something, and I truly enjoyed the more sci-fi spacey chapters.

I need to take away half a star because the Easter eggs that connect the story/characters are a little too subtle and too easily missed. Because we only witness a small moment in each character’s life, it was hard to remember the nuances about each one in the end. I could reread this book and pick up on the connections a second time, but with so many books to read I don’t think this is worth a second pass for that reason alone.

Really creative and moving, I’m glad I read this.

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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4.25

A very strange book. It's basically a series of short stories combined into one volume, but the characters are all connected in some ways and taken together they tell the story of how life on Earth was decimated by a plague and climate change and what people did afterwards. The final connections and the overarching narrative of the story doesn't become clear until the last chapter/story, which pulls everything together. It's also an exercise in memory, because the whole thing fits together like an intricate puzzle and if you aren't able to remember details you're going to miss a lot of the connections. It's an emotionally heavy story of an uncomfortably possible apocalypse and it made me tear up quite a few times, but also didn't quite have the emotional impact I think it could have had because I was so busy trying to keep track of how all the different stories fit together and place them in the timeline and the overarching narrative. However, I have a notably terrible memory, so that may be less of a problem for other people. It's unusual and clever, an interesting story told in a unique way, and worth the read if you like apocalypses with a sci-fi edge or if you just want a book unlike anything you've read before.

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taybug0001's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

One of the most intense books I’ve ever read. The characters’ stories are integrated in ways that make you feel like you need to read the book over and over again as not to miss a single thing. I can’t WAIT to read this again someday.

<SPOILER> Character Map:
1) 30,000 Years Beneath a Eulogy - Clara and her crystal pendant, Clara’s first Earth daughter, and Miki the artist

2) City of Laughter - Skip, Dorrie

3) Through the Garden of Memory - Everyone in this dark room was in a coma I think? We see memories of Clara and her first Earth daughter, and old Skip remembering Dorrie and Fitch (Ch 2), the lawyer Dan Paul (Ch 10), and the baby that was given a second chance at the end was Baba (Ch 13 Grave Friends).

I feel like there are more connections in this chapter but they went over my head.

4) Pig Son - Dorrie’s ex-husband

5) Elegy Hotel - Brian Yamato, his younger brother Dennis, and Dennis’s girlfriend Val who is later a passenger on the Yamato

6) Speak, Fetch, Say I Love You - robo-dog Hollywood that is later part of the shrine to deceased relatives (Ch 13 Grave Friends)

7) Songs of Your Decay - Laird who was the subject of one of Miki’s paintings?

8) Life Around the Event Horizon - Theresa (previously Clara) wears a crystal pendant and is married to Brian and is the one actually responsible for the Yamato

9) A Gallery a Century, a Cry, a Millennium - Miki and Dorrie paint the walls of the ship, Brian’s son and Val are also passengers

10) The Used-to-Be Party - Dan Paul the lawyer (Ch 3), Mabel the tattoo artist (Ch 12)

11) Melancholy Nights in a Tokyo Virtual Cafe - Ms. Takahashi also wears a crystal pendant and is looking for her mother. We later learn that she’s Nuri (Clara’s first daughter before Earth)

12) Before You Melt into the Sea - Mabel the tattoo artist and Dan Paul the lawyer (Ch 3, 10)

13) Grave Friends - Baba has memories of being a baby crawling through people (Ch 3), Hollywood is an old robo-dog from a great-great aunt

14) The Scope of Possibility - We learn Clara, Theresa, and the mother of the Siberian girl are the same person and the one who created Earth. She is searching for her daughter Nuri on Earth. She doesn’t know her daughter is Ms. Takahasi (Ch 11) who is also searching for her! </SPOILER>

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