Scan barcode
nikenacs's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.0
However, especially Miri's parts were a bit too slow-paced for my personal taste, and Miri as a protagonist increasingly irritated me with how much she was a dick to everyone around her. I know this is intentional, and I think I'd have more compassion with a real person, but as a protagonist, she was a lot at times.
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment
Moderate: Chronic illness, Mental illness, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Dementia
Minor: Homophobia and Lesbophobia
gwasgy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
The anecdotes about their relationship and sex life and weddings they went to and their relationship to their parents and the horrible reality of Leah turning into uh that. Contrasting with it was very good I enjoyed it. It reflected an interesting and I think extra real seeming reality
Moderate: Body horror and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Dementia and Death of parent
There is a character that goes through an eye trauma. Of sorts.maeverose's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
TL;DR: As other people have said, this isn’t so much horror as a book about grief with horror sprinkled throughout. I was interested to see what would happen the whole way through and I do tend to like books about grief, but in the end am left feeling overall ‘meh’ about the book.
A note on the horror elements for those worried about it:
If you’re especially bothered by body horror, gore, or themes of going insane I would go in prepared for that if you plan on reading it. I’m not a horror reader and I dislike reading those themes, but most of this book was fine for me (check my content warnings section for which parts to skip if you also dislike these themes but want to read anyway. You can’t really skip the ‘going insane’ stuff unless you just don’t read any of Leah’s chapters, but you’d be missing out on some parts of the story then). That being said, you know what your own limits are best. I have a moderate tolerance for gore in books and I’m rarely bothered by non-gory body horror. If you have a low tolerance overall, I’d probably skip it.
Now on to my thoughts:
(Vague/minor plot spoilers, but not really since this is not a plot-focused book)
I liked the way the Centre was depicted as this mysterious corporate entity, and wish that was explored more, as well as
On that note, I’ll end with some quotes about grieving missing loved ones that I liked:
“-grieving was complicated by lack of certainty, that the hope inherent in a missing loved one was also a species of curse.”
“In almost every case, the sense of loss was convoluted by an ache of possibility, by the almost-but-not-quite-negligible hope of reprieve.”
“Grief is selfish: we cry for ourselves without the person we have lost far more than we cry for the person - but more than that, we cry because it helps. The grief process is also the coping process and if the grief is frozen by ambiguity, by the constant possibility of reversal, then so is the ability to cope.”
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Dementia, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cancer, Eating disorder, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Vomit, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Fatphobia and Lesbophobia
There are depictions of people gradually losing their mind in confinement,julesadventurezone's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
It's a love story, it's a ghost story, it's a horror story.
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Gore, Homophobia, Sexual content, Blood, Vomit, Dementia, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol
Minor: Body shaming and Fatphobia
Contains descriptions oftheirgracegrace's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Vomit, Dementia, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Violence, Blood, and Alcohol
Minor: Cancer
One of the main characters is trapped in a submarine with two other people for six months and the three of them go clinically insane._lydlyds's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Moderate: Body horror, Death, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Dementia
ptara's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Body horror and Death
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Dementia
rabidteddybear's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Confinement, Mental illness, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Dementia
Minor: Self harm, Suicide, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Lesbophobia
broccoli_j's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
If you liked the writing style of „Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead“ you will definitely like the writing style of Julia Armfield!
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Abandonment
Moderate: Suicide, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Chronic illness, Dementia, and Gaslighting
kaiju_krispies's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
I'm a sucker for openers, the first fifty pages of a book to me are often my favorite; this is the rare one where it starts strong and just keeps getting better. I think the author is extremely clever in how and when we are fed a change of pace, a glimpse backward in time, or a grotesque new image. Prescient, also, to have written a book about the horrors of submarines in the deep ocean.
I spent most of the book feeling just slightly too stupid to gather all of the presented threads and tie them into a whole message. I can see the threads--the question mark of Miri's genetic illness and the pretending that we don't know what's going to happen even when we do, that grief is a ghost made vivid by memory more than it is about a person, that love is a void into which we stare and we are transformed by that love into something beautiful, grotesque, and impermanent--but I can't, quite, wrestle them into a whole, complete thought. This also feels right, because nothing about grief or love ever was just one thing. The night I finished it I cried to myself to sleep about my dog growing old, and in me is also the child crying for their old cat and only friend the night he died, and these are the same gritty pearl in the same body made different by time.
A book to read twice, but maybe not too close together, and an author to look out for. There were so many pitfalls here--over-flowery language, growing maudlin, making a thread too obscure or too obvious, revealing too much or too little, even letting the reader know it's okay that you know where this is going now, that's what a monster movie is--and by my reckoning they were all gracefully avoided. I cannot imagine what editing this was like. I appreciate being taken along on this story and will think about it for a long time to come.
Graphic: Body horror, Suicide, and Grief
Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, Dementia, and Death of parent