Reviews

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

saradf7's review against another edition

Not grabbing my attention enough to continue reading, may come back to it

moosefeather's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.75

jessgoh's review against another edition

Appreciated how it was structured episodically as a collection of short stories that follow each other chronologically. Couldn't get to the end because I just didn't feel invested. The tone of every character's inner monologue also sounded the same.

abotts27's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? No

5.0

An absolutely beautiful, heart wrenching read. It’s is very emotional and heavy, but perfectly captured the emotional turmoil the pandemic has taken on society. I felt the anthology style story telling added to the number of lives that were touched by the pandemic, and wove those pieces together really well. 

Definitely took me longer to read than most other books have recently due to the heaviness of the content, but I also don’t think that’s a bad thing. It allowed me to really soak in the material. 

myrranda5002's review against another edition

4.0

How high we go in the dark 3.5

atsundarsingh's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.5

DO NOT read if pandemic stories still hit you hard, BUT incredibly well-written. I thought the anthology format would be impossible to pull-off here, and yet it really worked. I LOVED the ending. Also, several of the stories genuinely stopped me in my tracks, where I couldn't read another one after and had to take a break. Really a surprising read for me overall. 

bez9918's review against another edition

5.0

This was a book well worth the push I needed to get through the difficult topic of child death. This was so intricately woven on both a structural level and a thematic level.
This book was heart wrenching to read, hearing of parents choosing how their child dies was not an easy thing but it was done in a delicate way that felt like humanity was earnestly trying its best. The stories felt incredibly true to the human experience and it felt real in its depiction of how far a parent would go to do what they believe is best for their child.
Difficult to read but in the most meaningful way possible, incredible book

lauramay94's review against another edition

emotional funny mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

4.5

bokegg's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

bexellency's review against another edition

2.0

Not what I expected and for me it started strong and just got weird.  Barely a novel.  Better described as interrelated short stories.  (Something I’d missed when reading the synopsis.). Although each without the snap and ending of a good short story.  I liked some of the early ones best - 30,000 Years Beneath a Eulogy, City of Laughter, Elegy Hotel.  I didn’t find a pig Son as memorable as other readers (had forgotten it until I was reading the end material author interview).  Things got weird for me in a life Around the Event Horizon - a singularity in his head, what does that even mean?  Both confusing and made me feel the way “films” do, like somehow I’m not smart enough to get it.  And while I might have liked a couple stories after that (Meloncholy Nights, Grave Friends) the level of weird stayed high (Before You Melt Into the Sea) and I just wanted to be done reading.  So not a book of speculative fiction I had expected from my apparently poor and incomplete reading of the blurb.  Rather a book about grief.  And I reject the Station Eleven comparison, as I loved that book.