Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - Permafrost

Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

Permafrost by Eva Baltasar

30 reviews

drlark's review

dark reflective slow-paced

3.5

A meandering, mostly vibes meditation on having/not having kids, sex and sexuality, suicide, and familial love. I like the complexity of the narrator -- a woman drifting through life who just wants to read books, have lots of sex with lots of women, and determine the right time to exit the world. Though that last one gets consistently derailed. Sometimes funny, sometimes super dark, and sometimes over-written, this is a quick, moody read that I picked up for Women In Translation Month. Glad I did, as it definitely has a European sensibility -- our narrator moving from Barcelona to Scotland to Belgium, teaching Spanish, speaking Catalan, and au pair-ing in English -- that I enjoyed.

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leic01's review

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dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

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veelaughtland's review

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challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

2.5

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danidamico's review

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dark funny reflective

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

Me encantan los textos que saben cómo encontrar el humor en situaciones terribles. Creo que el humor muchas veces es lo que nos conecta a la vida, incluso en los momentos en los que no tenemos tantas ganas de estarlo. Eva Baltasar construye una voz narradora muy particular, con un modo extraño de describir las cosas que resulta cautivante, te hipnotiza a querer seguir leyendo. La palabra perfecta para caracterizar Permafrost es visceral, como si el monólogo interior de la narradora fuera algo que tiene que arrancar de su cuerpo, escupirlo. Hay un urgencia compulsiva en lo que narra, aún entre el humor y el aire de superioridad. La protagonista se muestra dura, áspera, pero es pura vulnerabilidad, una herida abierta.

Tal vez a primera vista no parece, pero muchas veces los libros que tratan temas vinculados a la salud mental desde un punto de vista crudo y realista terminan resultando reconfortantes. Permafrost me hizo sentir menos sola, me hizo sentir menos loca y más loca al mismo tiempo. Me hizo sentir viva. No puedo esperar para leer Boulder, también escrito por Baltasar, aunque voy a dejar pasar un tiempo para que respire un poco esta lectura.

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james1star's review

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challenging emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Despite finishing this book a couple hours ago I’m still finding it quite difficult to summarise my thoughts. I definitely took a lot from it, underlining plenty lines and quotes and did overall enjoy it… I think. It’s hard to summarise the ‘plot’ as it’s rather disjointed with some linearity but there are fluctuations too. In permafrost we follow the first person POV from an unnamed protagonist who I believe is around her 30s (might and probably am wrong), she’s a ‘no bullshit lesbian’ (taken from the blurb) who sprawls her razor-sharp thoughts on modern life. She speaks of travels across Europe, short lived love affairs with many women, her family and the controlling nature of her mother in particular, childhood and growing up knowing she’s gay with thoughts that make her feel happy but there’s still this part in the back of her mind that she’ll grow into liking boys, not girls - I sort of went off here and it’s very in keeping with the book with many tangents that are fun to explore and really ground the reader in our narrator’s life -, living as a person I guess with the multitudes of familial and societal expectations, and more. A major topic is her thoughts of suicide, battles with mental illness and suicide attempts which are insightful, making you think but personally there was an unnerving feeling too where humour at such a tragic moment may seem a little crass… but then again, it is something people in such situations take too somethings so I can see her reasonings. In Julia Sanches’s translator’s afterword she perfectly sums up a though I had: “Eva Baltasar takes up issues that are often treated with kid gloves - a child's understanding of sex, death by suicide, illness - and addresses them with the same transparency due to anything else.” And I do think it’s this I liked the most. Sentences vary in length and there is no real convoluted prose but it is still lyrical and poetic at times, Baltasar being a poet certainly being the cause. The prose is very witty and crisp too which I feels breaks down the barrier for the reader to understanding our narrator and some of the other characters too - it reads a little memoir-esque. I am intrigued to read more by the author as have her second novel Boulder already and would like to complete the triptych this is part of. It’s not a new favourite but was enjoyable in the sense I understood and got a lot from it, maybe with another read I might increase my rating.

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