Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

32 reviews

sandramarinis's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Wow! One of the best books I've ever read. The amount of planning it takes to make this storyline make sense is incredible. I LOVED HER WRITING STYLE. It made me reflect a lot about my own existence and fear of the world ending and of technological development.

This book intertwines timelines in a seamless way that leaves you feeling like a detective trying to understand the order of all the events. It has amazing build up and will give you shivers when the storylines connect. The author writes in such a way that makes you really understand the time and place surrounding the characters who live within them.

My favorite quotes:

1. "My personal belief is that we turn to postapocalyptic fiction not because we're drawn to disaster, per se, but because we're drawn to what we imagine might come next. We long secretly for a world with less technology in it." (page 191). This hit so hard and also felt like the author was breaking the fourth wall.
 
2. I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we're living at the climax of the story. It's a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we're uniquely important, that we're living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it's ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world." (page 189).

The moon colonies freaked me out. It sounded so incredibly sad to live in a technological reality instead of earth. Especially with the fake sky and fake weather within the dome.


I also found it heartbreaking that Olive kept thinking about the fact that she was supposed to die in the pandemic. The whole part where she left earth convinced that she had been warned of her upcoming death, and then her husband doubted her sanity, was SUCH GOOD WRITING. It was so exciting!!! I was like šŸ˜®šŸ˜®šŸ˜®!


Gaspery pretending to follow the rules from the time Institute, just to do the opposite had me like šŸ‘€šŸ˜¬šŸ˜… Gaspery is such a thrill seeker and clearly couldn't let his curiosity be unexplored

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emmagreenwood's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0


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caebrown's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0


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pacifickat's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

*review pending*

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katy_bee's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.75

I really like Emily St John Mandel's writing style, although as I said I'm my review of station 11- I can see it isn't for everyone. 
There's an obvious author insert character which I wasn't sure about at first but I came round to it.
The first few chapters meander and you have to wait for it to come together, it did for me and it was beautiful

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jhbandcats's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-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? Yes

5.0

Wow, what an extraordinary novel. Time travel novels seem really hard to do without glaring anomalies in the timeline. Iā€™m in awe of people who even try to come up with such complex stories. (The Time Travelerā€™s Wife is a successful one.)

The feel of the book is like Mandelā€™s Station Eleven - so many tiny revelations of connection and meaning. The format is like David Mitchellā€™s Cloud Atlas where the first and last sections are the same story, the second and next-to-last are the same story, and so on, finally meeting in the middle. Itā€™s a fascinating way to tell a tale - there are so many subtle intricacies. 

I enjoyed Mandelā€™s sardonic humor in her references to what clearly had been her own experience: being queried at readings in 2020-2021 about her prescient pandemic storyline in Station Eleven, her bewilderment that her first books passed under the radar till Station Eleven hit it big and she was suddenly famous. 

I think this book is just fabulous. Itā€™s a beautiful story about humanity across the centuries. 

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novella42's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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


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maelikesbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious fast-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? No

4.5

I donā€™t usually like time travel stories, but this was a perfect one. 

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pearlisarobot's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-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

4.0


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theverycraftyvegan's review against another edition

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adventurous 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

I would give this book 10/5 if I could. Itā€™s so beautifully written that ā€œperfectā€ is the best way to describe it. This is science fiction that is so deeply based on reality that it is 100% believable. This could be our future. This might *need* to be our future. It was a little confusing at the start, because we spend only a little time with each character, but by the half way point I was enthralled. I loved how all the characters tied in together and the ending was *chefā€™s kiss*. 

I will definitely be reading more of Emily St John Mandel. 

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