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shesreadingagain_'s review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
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? Yes
4.0
I am writing this review after just finishing the book and I have a feeling this book is going to stick with me.
The author not so abstractly asks the reader to consider humanity in a time of inhumanity. Would you try to save someone by any means necessary if it means you will suffer unbearable consequences? I did not know what I was walking to and I feel like it had a deeper impact not knowing. Wow. The ending was so perfect. Man. My head is spinning and I absolutely loved this.
The author not so abstractly asks the reader to consider humanity in a time of inhumanity. Would you try to save someone by any means necessary if it means you will suffer unbearable consequences? I did not know what I was walking to and I feel like it had a deeper impact not knowing. Wow. The ending was so perfect. Man. My head is spinning and I absolutely loved this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, and Death
jhbandcats's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
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? Yes
5.0
Wow, what an extraordinary novel. Time travel novels seem really hard to do without glaring anomalies in the timeline. I’m in awe of people who even try to come up with such complex stories. (The Time Traveler’s Wife is a successful one.)
The feel of the book is like Mandel’s Station Eleven - so many tiny revelations of connection and meaning. The format is like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas where the first and last sections are the same story, the second and next-to-last are the same story, and so on, finally meeting in the middle. It’s a fascinating way to tell a tale - there are so many subtle intricacies.
I enjoyed Mandel’s sardonic humor in her references to what clearly had been her own experience: being queried at readings in 2020-2021 about her prescient pandemic storyline in Station Eleven, her bewilderment that her first books passed under the radar till Station Eleven hit it big and she was suddenly famous.
I think this book is just fabulous. It’s a beautiful story about humanity across the centuries.
The feel of the book is like Mandel’s Station Eleven - so many tiny revelations of connection and meaning. The format is like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas where the first and last sections are the same story, the second and next-to-last are the same story, and so on, finally meeting in the middle. It’s a fascinating way to tell a tale - there are so many subtle intricacies.
I enjoyed Mandel’s sardonic humor in her references to what clearly had been her own experience: being queried at readings in 2020-2021 about her prescient pandemic storyline in Station Eleven, her bewilderment that her first books passed under the radar till Station Eleven hit it big and she was suddenly famous.
I think this book is just fabulous. It’s a beautiful story about humanity across the centuries.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Confinement, Colonisation, Grief, and Pandemic/Epidemic
jessiejonesbentley's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-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? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Alcohol, Abandonment, Grief, Murder, and Death
ceruleanseas's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- 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? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Colonisation and Murder
Minor: Death of parent, Grief, and Death
caryndi's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
When I picked up this book, I didn't expect it to be so similar to Station Eleven. I thought the multiple-narrators, multiple-times thing was a device Mandel used to tell her pandemic story, specifically. I guess that is just how she writes, though, because this book was done the same way. It's not a bad style, but I was expecting a different approach given the uniqueness of that approach and the fact that this was a very different story.
The construction of the novel wasn't my main gripe, though. I cannot figure out the internal logic to this book.We're introduced to an "anomaly" that takes place under a tree in Northwest Canada and an airship terminal in Kansas City (?) simultaneously, but also hundreds of years apart. We find out some time travelers from the future are investigating this anomaly, and the main investigator, Gaspary-Jacques, is warned not to change anything while traveling through time. However, he accidentally causes the glitch by being in the same place twice (sent back as a time traveler, he encounters and speaks to a version of himself who was stranded in time after interfering with the timeline).
However, this glitch existed prior to his decision to become a time traveler -- in other words, the changes he made were always going to be made before he decided to make them. But, in other instances of time travel, that is not true! The Time Institute (I think that's the name used) tracks its agents by looking at historical records before and then after their visits to other times to see if anything changed in the timeline. So, in my mind, this glitch should not have existed for them to investigate because it was a change made by Gaspary-Jacques. Maybe the idea is that since it was a "glitch" it could exist in that paradoxical way that time-travel actions do. I don't know. But my brain kept bouncing off the way things played out and because of that, I don't think the entire story holds together.
That doesn't take away from the fact that the book was very atmospheric and technically well-written. I thought it was interesting that one of the main characters was the writer of a book about a pandemic, and at least one noted plot point matched the way things happened in Station Eleven. Like a little Easter egg. And it's fun to put together the pieces you pick up from the different time settings as you read. But the way the story falls apart if I try to think about it too hard outweighs the technical proficiency, in my mind, which is why this book only gets 3 stars from me.
The construction of the novel wasn't my main gripe, though. I cannot figure out the internal logic to this book.
However, this glitch existed prior to his decision to become a time traveler -- in other words, the changes he made were always going to be made before he decided to make them. But, in other instances of time travel, that is not true! The Time Institute (I think that's the name used) tracks its agents by looking at historical records before and then after their visits to other times to see if anything changed in the timeline. So, in my mind, this glitch should not have existed for them to investigate because it was a change made by Gaspary-Jacques. Maybe the idea is that since it was a "glitch" it could exist in that paradoxical way that time-travel actions do. I don't know. But my brain kept bouncing off the way things played out and because of that, I don't think the entire story holds together.
That doesn't take away from the fact that the book was very atmospheric and technically well-written. I thought it was interesting that one of the main characters was the writer of a book about a pandemic, and at least one noted plot point matched the way things happened in Station Eleven. Like a little Easter egg. And it's fun to put together the pieces you pick up from the different time settings as you read. But the way the story falls apart if I try to think about it too hard outweighs the technical proficiency, in my mind, which is why this book only gets 3 stars from me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, and Abandonment
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Gun violence, and War
mariebrunelm's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-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? Yes
5.0
The third son of a wealthy family looking for a purpose in the 19th-century Canadian wilderness, a young girl in the forest of a pre-pandemic world, and an author on a busy book tour stopped in her tracks by a violin player in an airship terminal, find themselves connected by the experience they make of a glitch in reality, a second when darkness engulfs them and they catch echoes of other realities.
This book! This. Book.
I’m very tempted to leave the review at that because what can I say? This book is gorgeous, it made me question my abilities as a writer, it’s doing things other books take hundreds of pages to do in a couple of pages and yet doesn’t feel rushed. I pity the translators for having to work so much information in so little words, all the while keeping the perfect fluidity of the sentences and the overall rhythm of the book. A masterclass in writing.
It won’t be a spoiler, because it’s literally in the contents at the beginning of the volume, that the structure of this novel is like that in Cloud Atlas. I won’t say more, because if you know, you know. It’s not a structure I’ve encountered much in books, but when well done it’s incredibly effective.
And when I thought this book couldn’t get any better, the last line encompassed a writing project I’d had in mind for months.
Do read Sea of Tranquility if you want a quiet, moving, time-travel story that will make you long for something you can’t name.
Rep: bisexual character in a queer-friendly environment.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Grief
galexy_brain's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-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
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Death, Murder, Misogyny, Death of parent, Colonisation, and Grief
sxndaze's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-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
4.0
It takes a little bit to get into, but it’s such an entrancing and gorgeous read. The way everything ties in together is mesmerising, and it kept me hooked. It speaks about life so beautifully as well, and it’s really a lovely read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Grief
norwegianforestreader's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicide, War, Vomit, Classism, Death of parent, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Terminal illness, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Colonisation, Confinement, Deportation, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Sexism
xosirenox's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Death
Moderate: War, Grief, and Colonisation