Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Severance by Ling Ma

15 reviews

serena_hien's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Gun violence, Violence, Confinement, Death of parent, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Dementia, Suicide, and Grief

Minor: Racism, Car accident, and Alcohol

jkull_10's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Blood, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Confinement

ktdakotareads's review

dark sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Death

Moderate: Confinement, Blood, Gore, Grief, Death of parent, Body horror, Drug use, and Injury/Injury detail

iro_san's review against another edition

mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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: Confinement, Body horror, Vomit, Cursing, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, Alcohol, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual content, Gun violence, Blood, and Death of parent

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Suicide attempt, Violence, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, and Grief

joensign's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicide, Confinement, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gore, and Death

Moderate: Body horror and Pregnancy

kelsokake's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

left me feeling pensive and almost like i would gain more after a reread

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Confinement

ohyeah_karyn's review

dark 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Drug use, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Pregnancy, Gun violence, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

sakisreads's review against another edition

challenging dark sad 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? It's complicated

4.5

Ooh, I LOVED this book so much. I thought that because of its current popularity on BookTok, it had been written during the pandemic, but it turns out it had been published in 2018 which gave me a sense of foreshadowing 😳 

Ling Ma captures the boredom of day-in, day-out hustle culture for the big men; in her Bible production job in New York, it’s evident she’s not loving life but she’s just keeping it going.
In sharp contrast, her perspective on Shen Fever taking over the city and her having to join this group of ‘survivors’ is so interesting and once I’d gotten into the different flashbacks I couldn’t put this book down.

I wasn’t expecting Ashley’s fevered time in her house and could picture all that so clearly. This element of horror was intense and I was wide-eyed the entire time reading it 😳

I really loved the ending to this book as well. I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen in the end but I’m glad it ended the way it did 🥹

SHE GOT AWAY WITH THE BABY, NICE ✨

I would highly recommend this to people who are fans of reading Asian literature and about the immigrant experience… All with a twist. This book reminded me a little bit of The School for Good Mothers! Thank you so much ❤️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Death of parent

readwithbells's review against another edition

3.5

A remarkably forward-thinking apocalypse book about a plague that is triggered by or flourishes within nostalgic memories. We follow Candace through a few timelines, one where she becomes the only person working in her company, one where she is caught up in a power-hungry group post-pandemmy, and interspersed with pieces of her childhood and her parent’s lives. 

I think this book is well-written and 100% accomplishes what it set out to do, I just prefer books I get more emotionally attached to and this one really kept me at arm’s length. To people who liked Leave the World Behind or Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans, Severance would be a good comp title. It was just too meandering for me, with a through-line caught up in the flow of memories instead of character arc, which is my personal preference. I’m glad I read it though!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Confinement

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Racism

Minor: Death of parent and Suicide

Brief but graphic mention of maggots in an open wound

foldingthepage_kayleigh's review

dark emotional reflective tense 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? Yes

4.5

This book was eerily prescient for what was to come during the COVID-19 pandemic, given that it came out in 2018. This book elicited an interesting emotional response in me, overall leaving me feeling reflective and adrift.

While firmly in the dystopian fiction genre, what I found unique was that this read more like a character study than anything. We follow the main character Candace Chen’s reflections on her life, moving back and forth through each point in her life that were mini-apocalypses in themselves, as her worlds as she knew them collapse. 

As a Chinese immigrant who moved to the U.S. when she was 6, themes of belonging/unbelonging resonate strongly throughout this novel, and are elements that give richness to the decisions she made and the points she gets to in her life.

I think what really added to my love of this book was the narrator Nancy Wu’s approach to characterizing Candace. Her style was a sort of a resigned deadpan, which I felt added a depth to the character that I don’t know I would’ve gotten from the tree book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Dementia, Medical content, Suicide, Violence, Body horror, Death, Confinement, Grief, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content

Moderate: Vomit

Minor: Car accident