Reviews with content warning for Death - Severance

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Severance by Ling Ma

144 reviews

souplover2001's review against another edition

mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

wish i could discuss with my grade 11 english class like i did with station eleven <3 also think it is a great choice to have this set in 2011 w the occupy movement, very intentional

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lenkusia's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

severance had me invested in the story from the first page. its a really interesting idea with a good execution. there were some small flaws – weird writing sometimes and an underwhelming ending. the world also was a little underdeveloped but i understand how it made the story more focused on the main character, which seemed to be the point.

ps. candace, the first anti–masker

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readwitheel's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

4.0

The cubicle banality of the end of the world is explored quite skillfully in Ling Ma's Severance. The interweaving of two different timelines flowed nicely with the overall themes and plot of the book. Throughout the novel, it was often a point of dispute wether or not Candace living her routine as an office worker was better or worse than living in the tragedy of post-pandemic world traveling with strangers. Nostalgia, memory, and identity were strong themes that stood out to me in this book, especially when tied with the reminiscing of her parents immigration to Salt Lake City from Fuzhou, China.

The illness in the book, Shen Fever, seems to be triggered by nostalgia and the fevered enter into a state of repetition of their daily routines to never resume consciousness or self-awareness. It is a point-of-no-return sickness, taking almost all of the population. It seems to be implied that Candace herself succumbs to this wave of nostalgia at the end of the book when she is fleeing from the Facility into Chicago, as if nothing ever presented itself with enough emotional power to sway Candace into becoming fevered until now. The trigger for Candace's fever is potentially nostalgia for her ex-boyfriend Johnathan, who lived in Chicago before he moved to NYC.
Ling Ma skillfully blurs the quantifiers of what it means to be sick and healthy, fevered and unfevered,

Candace's personality and life-choices felt distant and almost mechanical to me, even if there were writing descriptions of her laughing, being upset, etc. It was almost as if she were just living the life and having the feelings that she felt like she was supposed to have, rather that trusting that she was living the life she actually wanted to. Even though I felt distant from Candace, I was still able to relate to her, as her struggle of staking out a place in this world through working is one of many facing the harsh brutalities and requirements of surviving within capitalism requires.

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mraddd's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? No

4.5

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phantomgecko's review against another edition

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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? Yes

2.0

I was told this book would be funny. It wasn't.

It's the type of book that is low on plot and high on thought provoking. But it didn't provoke thoughts for me. It was just boring.

The only emotional response I had in the entire book was over the fact that Bob sucked. Frustration.

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dlrosebyh's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-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? Yes

2.25

Candace Chen is a routine-obsessed millennial drone who works alone in a Manhattan office building. She has experienced enough uncertainty after her Chinese immigrants parents recently passed away. She's content to just keep doing what she's doing: going to work, fixing the Gemstone Bible for teens, and watching movies in a basement in Greenpoint with her partner.

So when a scourge of biblical proportions sweeps New York, Candace hardly pays it any attention. Shen Fever then spreads. Families run away. Businesses stop operating. The subways come to a grinding halt. Her employers hire her as a member of a shrinking skeleton team with a significant end-date reward. As the fictitious blogger NY Ghost, she soon finds herself completely alone and unfevered as she captures the creepy, deserted metropolis.

But Candace won't be able to survive by herself indefinitely. Here come the survivors, led by the ferocious IT specialist Bob. They are headed to a location known as the Facility, where Bob assures them that they will have everything they need to rebuild society. But Candace has a secret that she is certain Bob would use against her. Does she need to flee from her rescuers?

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j_m_alexander's review

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-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

On the surface this book could be described as a pandemic novel published prior to COVID-19 (2018) or even a zombie book (maybe?), but the heart of this book is about relationships, directionlessness, worth, autonomy, and big questions around purpose... at least that's my quick take on it - what is below is much more interesting than the surface-level.

This book is more focused on building out the main character and relationships than driving plot, not to say there isn't plot, it's just not the most important thing. I wonder if some people reading this book now will get too hung up on the pandemic details to appreciate the subtle relationships and character studies? I hope not. There is a back and forth in timeline and the slow cobbling together of details that I think was executed well. I don't think we are supposed to love our protagonist, Candace, but I can absolutely empathize with her, same with her mother, and ditto to other more minor characters. The writing itself was good, moody, restrained but had real feeling - Ling Ma knows how to build some quiet seething tension. Also, this feels very much a millennial book, I mean this as a compliment, I feel like we're just starting to get more quality books that get to the experiences and feelings of this generation - my generation. Ling Ma has a unique voice and in this book she lends it to feelings of powerfully bleak, barely controlled pointless rage and a questioning searching nature.

For many it may not be the time (or never be the time) to read a pandemic novel, with all the illness and death that goes along with that, but that is not the only trigger warning I feel should be mentioned, I will cut right to it - there are no quotation marks in this book, I repeat NO quotation marks. It is not necessary to use quotation marks in fiction, and in fact unquoting seems to be in fashion, but I know some readers still find this distressing when they come upon it on the page, so be forewarned - this book is devoid of quotation marks. I personally have gotten over this pet peeve, even find it can be make for a more seamless reading experience at times, but that's just me, you do you readers, if you "can't, JUST CAN'T", when it comes to the omission of these little marks well then just move right along, there are plenty of other books in the store/library.

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