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sidhe's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
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
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Terminal illness, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Violence and Gun violence
Minor: Sexual violence, Child abuse, and Sexual assault
This book deals graphically with the impact of a global pandemic so you may not feel up to it in the current context.jaan's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.75
Reading this book is emotional. Three years ago, I would have dismissed it as far-fetched, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, doomsday-like, etc. but now, I am uncomfortably aware that this book could have happened. August says: "...given an infinite number of parallel universes, there had to be one where there had been no pandemic and he'd grown up to be a physicist as planned, or one where there had been a pandemic but the virus had had a subtly different genetic structure, some miniscule variance that rendered it survivable." In another universe, I am dead. In another universe, my ears aren't rubbed raw by mask strings at the end of the day. In another universe, everyone I love is dead. My reading notes say that it is very strange I am reading this book after having spent the afternoon watching Interstellar, and I also can't stop thinking that if this book happened to us, and I survived, I would never be able to be vegetarian again.
We traveled so far and your friendship meant everything. It was very difficult, but there were moments of beauty. Everything ends. I am not afraid.
Everyone will come away from this book with different understandings. For me, it is about grief, art, and the last people who died.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Sexual violence
Minor: Rape
irisestacansado's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Child death
Minor: Sexual violence and Domestic abuse
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.
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.
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
liliaweber's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The threads of different lives are woven together across different eras - in a non-chronological arrangement of chapters that somehow flows beautifully, rhythmically, like a song.
This book is basically a meditation on a quote from Star Trek, which is a mantra often repeated by the characters themselves: "survival is insufficient." It's about why the human need to create art and tell stories is worth braving the danger of an unpredictable post-apocalyptic world. It's also about the choice to let go of what we've lost vs the drive to rebuild it, or how to balance both. I ugly cried more than once.
Three of the main characters are sympathetic, compelling, interesting. If there's any flaw in this book it's that the one character that glues the others together - the first character mentioned in the opening line - is self-centered, boring to read about, and doesn't grow. Defeating the villain is only a small sliver of the story; the main goals of the main characters are to survive a post-apocalyptic world, to uncover missing truth, and to create something worth surviving for.
This book is basically a meditation on a quote from Star Trek, which is a mantra often repeated by the characters themselves: "survival is insufficient." It's about why the human need to create art and tell stories is worth braving the danger of an unpredictable post-apocalyptic world. It's also about the choice to let go of what we've lost vs the drive to rebuild it, or how to balance both. I ugly cried more than once.
Three of the main characters are sympathetic, compelling, interesting. If there's any flaw in this book it's that the one character that glues the others together - the first character mentioned in the opening line - is self-centered, boring to read about, and doesn't grow. Defeating the villain is only a small sliver of the story; the main goals of the main characters are to survive a post-apocalyptic world, to uncover missing truth, and to create something worth surviving for.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Violence
Moderate: Blood
Minor: Alcohol, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Trafficking
Murder, killing out of self-defense, and death from natural causes are depicted with some detail and are central to the story. The main villain of the story intends to traffick ("marry") a child but she escapes before he can. Suicide, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence are mentioned, but with very few details.taymo's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry
Moderate: Sexual violence and Violence
Minor: Suicide
indiarose8's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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? No
3.5
Beautifully and poetically written, this book is a dystopian look at humanity and relationships, as well as the role art plays in our lives. I really enjoyed the descriptions but found the switching back and forth between time periods jarring. It also moved a little too slowly for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Death
Moderate: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical trauma
Minor: Sexual violence
cocacolor's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.75
This book absolutely lived up to all its hype. In some ways, I feel like the synopsis is misleading; perhaps half of the book follows Kirsten and the post-apocalyptic timeline. A good half of the book delves deeply into the lives that orbited Arthur Leander in the days before the apocalypse, as Kirsten's did. It never feels as though you're reading two different books, though; although the worlds the characters exist in are vastly different, Mandel's humane, empathetic voice ties it all together. The only reason this novel doesn't get an unquestioned five stars is because I thought one important plot point was unclear at the end: Is Jeevan's settlement the one that has recreated electricity? If not, why not? Still, this novel has definitely won a spot on my Favorites shelf.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Medical trauma, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Violence, Pedophilia, Kidnapping, and Suicide
Minor: Sexual violence
amdriver12's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Gun violence
Minor: Sexual violence
daisydoolie's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.75
I really enjoyed this, different to what I’d usually read, and the premise was interesting - although less convincing when you’d actually lived through a flu like pandemic.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Gun violence, Medical content, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Sexual violence