Reviews tagging 'Pedophilia'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

45 reviews

szuum's review against another edition

reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pedophilia, Religious bigotry, and Violence

Moderate: Grief, Infidelity, Suicide, and Medical trauma

Minor: Child death and Rape

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical content, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Violence

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Blood, Colonisation, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Ableism, Alcohol, Animal death, Drug use, Infidelity, Pedophilia, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Rape and War

Adult/minor relationship warning is partially for a couple who met when one was a minor. Ableism warning is for the trope of a disabled character dying as part of an abled character's story. Colonisation warning is just in case, for discussion of Israel in a normalized light.

emilia_thereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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

4.0

A haunting study of humanity and what happens when the world collapses around it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Murder, Pedophilia, Suicide, Religious bigotry, Grief, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Kidnapping and Gun violence

nodogsonthemoon's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Suicide

Moderate: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Murder, and Blood

Minor: Death of parent, Addiction, Stalking, Rape, and Pedophilia

bookcaptivated's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Pedophilia, Grief, Infidelity, Kidnapping, and Medical content

Minor: Rape, Suicide, Child death, Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, and Stalking

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

bookishplantmom's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

I was curious about this book after reading How High We Go in The Dark - I had heard they were similar. And in some ways they are but in many they are quite different. This is also a pandemic story told in a series of vignettes from a range of characters lives across a period of time. Somehow this story feels particularly surreal despite it being closer to reality than HHWGITD. It reminded me more of Butler’s Parable of The Sower actually. It isn’t nearly as good in my opinion but it does take an unflinching look at some of the worst parts of humanity while also thinking through the meaning of community and civilization. The writing was not particularly impactful to me but I did enjoy how the various vignettes fit together. None of the characters stood out to me or clicked for me. Reading this I found myself reflecting a lot about how things *actually* are going two years into a pandemic vs how the author imagined it might go. A fascinating experience reading this now.  

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Rape, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Infidelity, and Terminal illness

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

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.

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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.

dkayayay's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Suicide, and Misogyny