Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Severance by Ling Ma

27 reviews

opalinebeing's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Suicide, Violence, and Terminal illness

maziodynes's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

Absolutely stunning. This is the next great American novel for milennials living through a global pandemic. It puts things into sharp perspective for those of us continuing to push through corporate jobs while the world feels like it's crumbling. The story is superbly executed, poignant, and simultaneously reverent and mocking of American culture. I'm going to be thinking about this book for a long, long time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Confinement, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, Gun violence, Grief, Gaslighting, and Drug use

queertrash's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective tense fast-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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Violence

Minor: Drug use

momentsofmine's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Stalking, and Terminal illness

pandemic

epidemic

pregnancy

bencaroline's review against another edition

dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Terminal illness, and Grief

Moderate: Xenophobia, Sexism, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness

Minor: Death of parent, Racism, and Religious bigotry

Pandemic

yavin_iv's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Death, Death of parent, Confinement, and Sexual content

Moderate: Gore, Violence, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Drug use, and Dementia

It takes place during a bad global pandemic and parts feel eerily familiar to covid times--just know that going in.

sarah984's review against another edition

reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

Parts of this book really sucked me in - the pandemic itself, the way people reacted to it in different ways, the way that the protagonist had felt disaffected with her work because of how it exploits others for basically meaningless commodities.

However, I found the characters boring and unappealing (and those sex scenes - yuck) and the cult stuff wasn't that interesting.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Dementia, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Vomit