Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

Severance by Ling Ma

9 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

hazel_georgene's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pregnancy

Minor: Car accident

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

allisonbrooke's review against another edition

emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Grief, Pregnancy, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Body horror, Death of parent, Car accident, Confinement, and Death

bluejayreads's review

challenging dark slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I barely skimmed the back cover before picking this up. I’m trying to read more broadly. I don’t think I’ve ever read a satire, it’s by a Chinese author featuring a Chinese protagonist, and looked to be satirizing the meaninglessness of modern work culture (relatable) and post-apocalyptic fiction (I’ve read a lot, could be interesting). 

This was published in 2018, but I had to check. I think it was supposed to be satire of the modern millennial life in NYC or the post-apocalyptic genre or both. In 2018, maybe it was. But in February 2022, nearly two years into a deadly global pandemic that varies only slightly from the “epidemic” of the book, Severance isn’t satire – it’s prophetic. 

This book is told out of order, altering back and forth between Before and After. Before and After what isn’t obvious in the book, but it’s clear to me. I can’t pinpoint a particular event or moment, but my life has definitely divided into Before Covid and After Covid. “It seemed to happen gradually, then suddenly,” as Candace says. Candace keeps going into work as everything slowly crumbles, keeps trying to do her job even though there’s less and less job to do, until suddenly it’s After and things are completely different. 

I am not going to talk about the After timeline. I am not prepared to touch those emotions right now. 

I didn’t think I had much if any of that “collective pandemic trauma” people talk about. Then I read Severance, and it turns out I do. When Candace’s job started requiring N95 masks, I felt a sinking familiarity. When a character first said the phrase “these uncertain times,” it felt like a punch in the gut. This book pulls on the trauma of living through a pandemic and the horror of surviving an apocalypse and combines them into something vividly repulsive and hideously possible. It evokes the visceral terror of being in a place usually full of people and discovering you are alone; the agonizing helpless realization that even if you survive this, there is no future; the despair of knowing that even if the world is ending, the only thing you can do is get up and go to work. 

I read this as an audiobook at work, my mind lost in the horror and despair of this barely-fictional world while my hands, nearly independent of the rest of me, did my job. Scan the box. Open the box. Take out the bag. Label the bag. Put the bag in a new box. Label the new box. I repeat the same process over and over again, just like the epidemic victims in the book. I think that’s what Severance is supposed to be satirizing. 

If there is an apocalypse, it won’t be like any of my post-apocalyptic novels. If it’s like any work of fiction, it will be like this. And if that’s the case, I don’t think I want to survive. I took several books off my to-read list. I have no more desire to read any post-apocalypses. I am too afraid of surviving the end of the world. 

I’ve never legitimately described a book as life-changing before, but Severance is. I feel like I’ve just realized the world is about to end and can’t understand everyone continuing on and worrying about unimportant stuff. I feel like I have to sit down and figure out what actually matters because most of the shit I’m doing now just doesn’t. 

Severance feels terrifyingly, painfully, imminently possible. If no one ever recovered from covid, we might be living in the world of Severance right now. 

This book is not satire. It’s psychological, existential horror. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Body horror, Gun violence, Blood, and Confinement

Moderate: Suicide, Gore, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Sexual content, Drug use, Car accident, Child abuse, Alcohol, and Vomit

Existential horror, existential despair

nyssbomb's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Gore, Medical content, Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Alcohol, Body horror, Drug use, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Minor: Car accident

erindoesdesign's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-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? Yes

5.0

Incredible. The pandemic depiction is so uncannily accurate that I spent the first half of the book assuming it had been published sometime in the summer of 2020 at earliest. Unexpectedly emotional in places. The way the story weaves from past to present is beautiful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Death of parent, Vomit, Suicide, Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Gore, and Dementia

Minor: Abandonment and Car accident

Pandemic topics might be sensitive for some

f18's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Medical content, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Racism, Suicide, and Xenophobia

Minor: Abortion, Car accident, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

lou_o_donnell's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Car accident, Drug use, Gore, Medical content, and Physical abuse