Reviews tagging 'Death'

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

270 reviews

pacifickat's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

This book is exactly the sort of thing I would love: a series of loosely interconnected short stories that serve as vignettes of people's lives surroinding a central world-altering event. I will write a more thorough reveiw later, but for now suffice it to say that I loved this book, its style, its many distinct voices, and the audiobook narration was perfection.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Grief, Suicide, Pandemic/Epidemic, Child death, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcohol and Medical content

Minor: Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racism, and Violence

Euthanasia

cassiafied's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.5

tried not to cry in college bc of this book🌝🌝🌝

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Child death, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Terminal illness

abyjo's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

I feel like I'm sitting here wondering what I just read.

I haven't cried that much over a pig since babe.

 
I loved all the references to past stories as the story continued. 
 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Death, Animal death, Child death, and Suicide

alexhodge's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

5.0

gut wrenching. beautiful writing. inventive stories. emphasis on gut wrenching. this is a book that sticks. it will keep me up at night. i highly recommend it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Terminal illness, Suicide, Child death, Death, and Chronic illness

otakatoe3's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Cancer, Abandonment, Infidelity, Chronic illness, Child death, Death, Racism, Terminal illness, Confinement, and Grief

spicytomato's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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

5.0

An exploration of humanity and how we respond to loss, grief and destruction on a global scale. Aspects of this book destroyed my heart with poignant stories of incredible heartache and loss. Truly devastating but I couldn’t put it down. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Child death, Death, and Suicide

st_ender's review against another edition

hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Last part sort of let me down but it's still a hit

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Animal death, Medical content, Death, Grief, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Medical trauma and Body horror

Minor: Chronic illness, Confinement, Cancer, Pregnancy, Body shaming, and Suicide

Extensive discussion of euthanasia, and anything that can possibly happen to a person once they die.

traciereads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Child death, Death, Grief, Dysphoria, Cancer, Ableism, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Self harm, Addiction, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Abandonment

lilly_dav_reading's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Pandemic/Epidemic

hyuzen's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad

5.0

The quality of this book kind of crept up on me. Once it's over and you understand how things are connected it's a beautiful tapestry of vignettes featuring people living in the midst and aftermath of a devastating virus.

Filled with despair and grief in equal measure to hope and premise, this is a challenging read to start. It deals with very heavy subjects relating to death on a macro and micro scale, across all ages. Grief shatters people, shatters relationships. Sometimes the virus only accelerates issues that were under the surface before. But within all that are people seeking connection.

Across the chapters characters and objects reappear, with new perspectives giving new insight and knowledge that makes you want to go back and re-read earlier chapters to appreciate them in new ways.

As an aside, I think this book is a great example of why StoryGraph's review categories seem limiting. Trying to distill this down to whether it's character or plot focused, or whether the characters were loveable just feels like it's missing the point.

But that's beside the point. This was a remarkable read and if you can handle the darkness you'll be rewarded.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death

Moderate: Death of parent, Terminal illness, Death, and Animal death