Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

30 reviews

whatathymeitwas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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: Death, Terminal illness, Grief, Death of parent, and Child death

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Blood, Alcohol, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, and Violence

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Animal death, Mental illness, Drug use, Pregnancy, Rape, and Sexual content

sbsreads's review against another edition

hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Though this book is marketed as dystopian at first, it takes a reflective and emotional look into the aftermath of an apocalypse with fascinating glimpses into life before and how it affects those who survived. It was very different from most dystopian that I’ve read before and I loved the reflective nature of it!!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Murder

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, and Death of parent

This book is centered in an apocalyptic pandemic so it may be triggering.

owenwilsonbaby's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

"He woke to quiet voices. This had been happening more and more lately, this nodding off unexpectedly, and it left him with an unsettled intimation of rehearsal. You fall asleep for short periods and then for longer periods and then forever."

Compellingly written prose with a well-developed cast of characters. Whilst I wish Kristen's storyline had more events within it, I really liked the book and I think it is both hopeful and unsentimental about humanity, in a way that I suspect might be altered in the TV adaptation. 

This book has a lot to say about art and community-building and the role these will play in coming crises. It felt resonant with ecological anxieties about climate change and social anxieties in the age of COVID-19. Some of the passages about process and industrialisation felt a tad oversimplified and neoliberal - surely an Amazon delivery driver or a factory worker making snowglobes has complex, nuanced feelings about their labour and their lives that goes beyond gratitude for a job - but everything else was thoughtful, interesting, well-paced and moving. I loved Kirsten and Miranda. What wonderful characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Pedophilia, Death of parent, Death, Medical content, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Child abuse, Confinement, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Cursing, Grief, Gun violence, and Mental illness

lemonflower's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Medical trauma, Murder, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Suicide, and Violence

Minor: Gore, Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Chronic illness, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

readerette's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective 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? No

5.0

I could not put this down. I was immersed. I've never experienced an apocalyptic story that came so close to feeling real--how things seem like they would really go if something world-ending came to pass. Aside from Part 7 being too long and unfocused for my taste, I loved it all: the writing, the characters, the relationships, the new world that came to be, the little things people remembered or cherished... Just beautiful. She's captured the little world within a world that each of us builds by way of the people we are connected to; the ones we know our whole lives and the ones we meet indirectly through their art or work or or mutual friends; the ones we meet early and the ones we meet later; the ones we lose for a while and the ones we lose forever; the ones who were part of some milestone and the ones who were a constant.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Death, and Violence

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Blood, Infidelity, Medical content, Pregnancy, Animal death, Death of parent, Murder, Suicide, and Cursing

emhunsber's review against another edition

emotional hopeful tense medium-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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Death, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, and Violence

Minor: Pedophilia, Medical content, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Rape, Pregnancy, Drug use, Infidelity, Confinement, Adult/minor relationship, Gun violence, Death of parent, Child death, and Alcohol

jenbosen's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Death of parent, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Rape, Medical content, and Suicide

grimviolins's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Terminal illness, Religious bigotry, Pedophilia, Murder, Gun violence, Grief, Death of parent, Death, Child death, and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Violence, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping

Minor: Rape and Panic attacks/disorders

laurenleigh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Big thank you to my sister-in-law for gifting me this book! 😘 It’s almost hard to believe this was written pre-pandemic; it’s so on the nose. At times it almost hit a little too close to home and made me sad for the things we’ve lost, but I also gained some perspective. In no way would I minimize the effects of COVID, but at least we still have electricity and running water. I guess things could always be worse? The most important perspective though is the importance of art (in ALL its forms) during crisis. As a creative outlet, as a distraction, as a social setting, and as a message to the future of how life felt at the moment of its creation, art is extremely powerful. I love the connection drawn between our modern pandemic times and Shakespeare’s plague era. There were moments all the disparate storylines felt confusing, but I do think St. John Mandel is a talented writer, if based on nothing else but that stellar opening chapter.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Blood, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Murder, Violence, Sexism, Rape, Injury/Injury detail, and Death

Minor: Infidelity and Pregnancy

_fallinglight_'s review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

1.5

Only stuck with it to the end bc I found out there's going to be a limited tv series and I wanted to see why people think so highly of this book and I'm completely at a loss bc I DON'T GET IT. Easily one of the worst decisions I've made reading wise. It's got a huge Stephen King vibe except this book is so boring it's criminal! It's the end of the world through the eyes of privileged, first world middle-upper class people that I didn't give one f%ck about. (which is probably why this book and now many dystopias have me side eyeing them bc I read a tweet (can't find it anymore and don't remember the author:( some while ago that said dystopias are basically white and/or privileged people's fears of things to come that actually have been the reality for colonized, poor and disadvantaged Black and POC for hundreds of years. I honestly hadn't seen it that way and well now I'm having difficulty with these books especially with this one that was so bad!) It was aiming for some grand scale philosophical poignancy that I'm most likely too dumb to get or it was such a fail on the author's part bc this book is a colossal waste of time. I hated it.

The only parts I can't hate bc they were kinda decently done were Jeevan's subplot and the fallout of the pandemic which was so eerie to read right now. But everything else was atrocious. The characters are not interesting. They are flat and lifeless as hell I didn't care for any of them at all. The prophet thing was added to shit on religion only bc it didn't add much else and was easily dismissed like nothing. And what was that about referring to most of the characters by the instruments they play? The few ideas or subplots that might have flourished this book were lackadaisical and left incomplete. But what honestly bugged me the most was how improbable everything felt to me. Not the disease or whatever but the aftermath. This book basically treated humanity like unthinking husks who will just sit by and let everything rot and die bc “omg we no longer have twitter!!! How will we ever be able to communicate and thrive and live without it?!?!?” Which makes this book annoyingly very fiction and to me very unrealistic in the human ingenuity aspect and not what I signed up for. (ok so it didn't want to be a hopeful book for the most part but girl, humans are stubborn and really do think and create and recreate even the worst of people. Unless of course it was aiming at critiquing our dependence to technology and that we fell away from our hunting-gathering roots and capitalism has us f*cked up but I don't think that's what she was going for lol)

I thought I was gonna be in my feelings reading this, the characters and plot were gonna feel surreal bc hey! I'm in the middle of a pandemic too and well...Just not a good book for me. I honestly can't believe this is gonna have a tv adaptation. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Pregnancy, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, and Suicide

Minor: Death of parent