Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

85 reviews

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.

mblanke's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Kidnapping

Moderate: Suicide and Child abuse

Minor: Alcoholism

whirl's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful 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? No

4.0

The description of the start of the pandemic are a bit too spot on now that there has been a pandemic.. although it really highlights how lucky we’ve been that covid-19 was much less deadly!

The book has a nice pace, and just ambles through the lives of various survivors loosely connected to each other before the pandemic hits

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Grief

Moderate: Ableism, Kidnapping, and Violence

Minor: Child death, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Murder, and Suicidal thoughts

While the book describes a post apocalyptic world which is clearly more lawless and violent, it doesn’t go into unnecessarily detailed descriptions and is more about what happens to people’s minds and personality to live in such a world

deezy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• 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: Religious bigotry, Death, Kidnapping, and Medical trauma

lemonflower's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Medical trauma, Murder, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Suicide, and Violence

Minor: Gore, Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Chronic illness, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

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.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical trauma, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Violence, Pedophilia, Kidnapping, and Suicide

Minor: Sexual violence

emhunsber's review against another edition

emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Minor: Pedophilia, Medical content, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Rape, Pregnancy, Drug use, Infidelity, Confinement, Adult/minor relationship, Gun violence, Death of parent, Child death, and Alcohol

vimes_48's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, and Kidnapping

mondovertigo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Child death, Animal death, Violence, Suicide, Stalking, Rape, Pedophilia, and Murder

Minor: Gun violence

garynoplastie's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Terminal illness, Blood, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Animal death, and Gun violence

Moderate: Grief, Suicide, and Medical content

Minor: Rape