Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Severance

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Severance by Ling Ma

146 reviews

helliepad's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad 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

4.0

I actually read this book because I thought this was connected to the TV show Severance but it's not the same thing lol. However, this story also deals with the workplace and the immigrant story of alienation and being other. I like that the main character Candace keeps to herself most of the time because introspection and reflection is something that is rarely explored in stories set during a zombie apocalypse, especially one set in a metropolitan city such as New York.

There's a connection between Candace and the Latin blue collar workers, Manny from reception and Eddie from the cab, that she chose at first to be closer to the rich WASP Art Girls than Manny who asks about her day and is worried about her health; and then at the end when the world left her to find friendship in Eddie only when

NY ended up being a shithole and she had to get out pronto

.

The title was mentioned during Candace's memory of her father and it talks about seperating themselves from their pasts (severing from the homeland and roots like cutting an umbilical cord, that messy painful love that all overseas workers have a word for), but it could also work as severance pay, especially when what kickstarted Candace on her journey to

get out of New York

was seeing the severance pay in her bank account, a few months after the outbreak.

How much appeal does the American dream have to this day? To have the luxury but to live in emptiness? To go home and be with family but due to the nature of going after that dream be prevented from being able to do so? To surrender yourself to the work and routines of a city and a job until death, and even then? Is a person wrong for working? Is a city wrong for demanding of its citizens? What does it mean to be rootless and homeless yet having a home before you even go there?

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maartabarrales's review

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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eemilycolleen's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No

5.0

BLEAK and horrifying and so smart. loved the workplace satire stuff, loved the wandering through the city documenting things fall apart, loved the central through-line of the fevered caught in nostalgic cycles forever. loved the ending. also like - more poignant than i expected! some touching mother/daughter shit here.

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joelsands's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad 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

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webb_beb's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.75

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rachbake's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.25

quite an interesting read...severance's deliciously satirical apocalyptic tale seems - considering the current times - depressingly prophetic in hindsight.

i rly like how society and human behavior bend in all surprising directions here when aspects of society at large consequentially start to collapse. calling dibs on shops in a mall for personal rooms? moving into the office when public transport stops? like, it doesnt get more capitalistic and american than that. the titular theme - in all its various forms - provides an intriguing examination of the ensuing loneliness of modern society as well. anddd it also makes me rly rly rly miss new york in all its barmy, yucky, yet freeing glory.

this is def a thought-provoking and mysterious read that subtly keeps one guessing, though i wish the writing was just a lill bit more polished.

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dreamdoughnut's review against another edition

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challenging dark 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? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

bluejayreads's review

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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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sydneybedell's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective tense 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

3.0

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