Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas

12 reviews

sulaasg's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective fast-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

Spectacularly well constructed, I loved every second of this book. There were some novel ideas around time travel, and some interesting introspection on how we feel about our past and future selves. 
The female centric narrative was delightful, and the idea that an innovation by four women would create a female centric work force. 
My only issue, and this might be because I read the book in two days on my holiday while occasionally hungover, but I ended up fucking back and forth to confirm if a character was someone we'd already met or not. 
I've started wondering if the story would feel changed if read in chronological order, and I'm tempted to come back to the book in a few months and give it a try. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Grief

Moderate: Gun violence, Ableism, and Mental illness

Minor: Sexual harassment

daniellekat's review against another edition

SO BORING. The writing is dull, the characters are flat and one dimensional, and the plot was very meh.  This very much feels like a classic debut novel to me - overdeveloped plot with underdeveloped writing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Mental illness, Blood, and Death

Minor: Racism

saliwali's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective relaxing 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? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Bullying, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Murder, Mental illness, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

maresuju's review

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-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? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Mental illness, Death, Ableism, and Gun violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Death, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Murder, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Grief

Minor: Suicide attempt, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Cancer, Eating disorder, Animal death, Blood, and Pregnancy

spinat's review against another edition

emotional lighthearted reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

The book is more about psychology and mental health, than about science nitty-gritty. It raises some interesting topics. Though many characters are facing mental health issues, and perception of death being a big theme, the book has a rather warm tone, with loving family members and life partners.

and the conclave conditioning its employees out of compassion, the harm that it's doing, and an individual's role in it all, are scary reflections of reality, and we'll portrayed, I think.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Eating disorder, Toxic friendship, Mental illness, Ableism, Blood, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Grief, Sexual harassment, and Animal cruelty

thequiltyreader's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Bullying, Cancer, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Toxic friendship

therainbowshelf's review against another edition

emotional funny mysterious tense 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

I enjoyed this book. It had a really interesting exploration of time travel and the rules governing travelers. I also thought the characters were interesting and I'm always delighted to find queer representation in random books I pick up. 

📘The Gist 📘: Time travel takes the mystery out of everything, including death. It also makes it possible to solve certain crimes. When a woman in her 80s is murdered in a locked room, her death spawns am investigation that stretches across time. 

📒Representation📒: wlw mc, bipoc mc and sc, senior mc

💕 For readers looking for 💕: interesting time travel, mystery, a touch of romance

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Blood, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Murder, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Sexual content

norwegianforestreader's review

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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Cancer, Car accident, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Murder, Pregnancy, Racism, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

lilifane's review

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

When you read a lot (and I mean a loooot) of books about time travel, and you think, you've seen it all, but then you read this gem. What a cool approach to the subject. 
It can be a little confusing, and I didn't do myself any favour by listening to the audiobook, but I still loved it so so much. (Also, I really enjoyed the audiobook) So it's not primarily a book about time travels but more about the people who invented it and the ones who used it. About long term effects time travel may have on the psyche. About friendship, family, love and murder. Yeah, there is also a murder mystery to be solved. 
It's also really diverse and feminist (almost the entire cast of characters is female). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Eating disorder, Grief, Infidelity, and Murder

marlinspirkhall's review

adventurous emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective medium-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? Yes

5.0

  (review from January 2020)

  Oh my God. I didn't have any idea what to expect going into this, and then this book gave me so much diversity, an engaging plot, fantastic characters and amazing writing. I fucking adored it. I asked my dad if he deliberately got me a book which festured lesbian and bisexual women as main characters and he said he just stumbled across it in the sci fi section at a bookstore.

  This book really inspired me and gave me lots of writing steam for this year, and I'll definitely be rereading it at some point. It took me just over a week to read and I remember bringing it to work one day, though I didn't get that far with it during my short lunch break. My phone battery started going on the fritz about this time, too, so it was nice to have something to do other than plug it in to charge and pray for the best.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Eating disorder, Torture, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Homophobia, Biphobia, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Self harm

Toxic Friendship: This is pretty integral to the book- one character is treated badly by the others, and deliberately exluded. Hazing, Torture: In order to join the time-travellers, there are extensive hazing techniques in place, which includes playing the "Angel Of Death"

- whereby a character must tell a child that her father is about to die, terrifying her (and traumatising her for life).

Biphobia/homophobia:

Bisexual character discusses "avoiding certain timelines" because there are times in the future where society is biphobic. She describes it as "one step forwards one step back", which is certainly not a hopeful view of the future.

Fire/Fire Injury, Self harm:

Time travellers have seen that they will get injured in an accident in the future, and therefore willingly step into time machines which they know are about to explode.

Eating disorder: A character develops a specific fixation where she only feels able to eat a specific time and place,

so there are several versions of herself gathered in the park eating their packed lunches.

This is dealt with gently in the plot, but it is a fairly important checkpoint.