Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

Sacred and Terrible Air by Robert Kurvitz

6 reviews

brambleberry_png's review against another edition

3.75

mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Listened to this as an audiobook by Snow Munkey Asmr on yt  based on a fan translation afaik and he made this really enjoyable. I loved the voice acting in Disco Elysium a lot, so this was honestly perfectly suited for the audio book format. 

Sacred and Terrible Air is set some time after Disco Elysium in thd same universe, so no familiar characters. Dense, terrifying and deeply atmospheric. I looooved the sections about the Pale. 

Essentially a philosophical missing persons novel, with some cosmic horror

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Alcohol

cassiaduma's review against another edition

5.0

dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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one of the most ruinously powerful books I've ever read. post-soviet skeptical literature fully formed. deeply felt character work here, and doesn't shy away from a lot of genuinely horrific situations. the pale is the most fascinating fictional device of the 21st century. I can only hope kurvitz and the artists get control of their work so we can see the rest of this beautiful world.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse

accywolf's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Violence, Grief

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Racism, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Dementia, Kidnapping, Stalking

Minor: Addiction, Alcohol, War

pinahuiztle's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Police brutality, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship

Moderate: Gun violence, Dementia

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Pregnancy

noel_b's review against another edition

3.0

dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Disclaimer 1: I read the fan translation by Group Ibex and, while it's clearly a labor of love, there is some jankiness to the prose that's clearly the product of machine translation. Not enough to make it hard to understand, but it did take me out of the story a couple of times. It's hard to judge the book's prose or style, because I'm unable to separate what's a product of the author and what's a product of the translation.

Disclaimer 2: I read this after playing (and loving) Disco Elysium and was already aware of some of the concepts that are central to the world, but that the book isn't concerned with explaining. I probably would have got the important bits just from reading, and it would have been fine, but I can't say if someone new to the world would get frustrated if this book was their point of entry.

That said, I enjoyed the book! It follows three men, still investigating the disappearance of their high-school crushes, decades after the case went cold. Kurvitz is not shy about following flawed people doing ugly things and he is nothing if not thematically consistent. The main characters of Sacred and Terrible Air will feel familiar to anyone that has embodied Harry Du Bois. Pathetic, fuck-up losers, stuck in the past, unable to move forward and, instead, desperate to drag everyone back with them.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Pedophilia, Suicide, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Classism

sunsorbit's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Stalking, Alcohol, War, Classism

Moderate: Death, Racism, Torture, Police brutality, Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Confinement, Genocide, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Vomit, Dementia