Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut

8 reviews

josemoya's review against another edition

funny informative inspiring reflective sad fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

Benjamín Labatut ficciona cuatro grandes descubrimientos del siglo XX (los fertilizantes, la geometría no euclidiana, los agujeros negros, la mecánica cuántica) trazando un camino de hilos que engarzan las vidas de los científicos implicados en estos descubrimientos.
A veces terrible, a veces inspirador, en cualquier caso es un ejercicio de narrativa fantástico.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Sexual content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Excrement, Suicide, Drug use, and Genocide

efpaterson's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Suicide, Drug use, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Gore

arielamandah's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

What in the world did I just read? This is a strange, ambitious novel that’s part philosophy, part historical science, and part terrifying walk through the horrors of the modern world. And some very odd sexual scenes, to boot.  It feels like there’s a lot of mixing fiction and science here - blurring those lines. And, truly, it was very dark, violent, and explicit about the horrors of war and chemistry, and the scary parts of math and science. (It didn’t make me walk away from it feeling very good - mostly just sad, disgusted, and a little WTF.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Medical content, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, Mental illness, Dysphoria, Body horror, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, Blood, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Eating disorder, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, War, Violence, Torture, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Racism, Racial slurs, and Physical abuse

lipka's review against another edition

dark emotional informative tense fast-paced

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

        Un verdor terrible is... blue, black, and devastating. It's a strange moment: the reality and unreality folded together, nonlinear and noneuclidean. You really could blot out the sun with this book. Hold it just high enough—the shadow it casts is a dark, ancient thing.

        The chapters fling themselves in all directions at breakneck speed. A comet, and a coma. "What wind drags it off with the fury of an angel cast out from heaven, falling, and falling, and falling?" Only the tail end of it can tell.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Genocide, Suicide, Suicide attempt, War, Medical content, Sexual content, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Mental illness, Sexism, Dysphoria, Antisemitism, Drug use, and Murder

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Excrement, Rape, Vomit, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Pedophilia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Xenophobia

albernikolauras's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

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

3.5

This is a complicated book that wavers on the line between nonfiction and fiction. It starts out near nonfiction and then as we get further in time and into science, the line blurs further. It's a book that plays with how famous scientists reached through reality to pull their theories into fruition. It's disturbing, discomfiting, near hallucinogenic, and I don't know what to think of part of it.

It's something that still haunts me, and it brings to question the morality of a scientist entangled in his worth as a scientist in the times of war that these men lived through. It's a quick read, but it does require some background knowledge on different physicists that made key quantum discoveries. I would recommend it, but definitely look at some of the content warnings.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Drug use, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Mental illness, and Death

Moderate: Child death, Chronic illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Antisemitism

Minor: War

samferree's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

The closest comparison I can think of to the style and content is Erik Larson's narrative non-fiction. I'm honestly not sure what parts are fiction since I was already familiar with some of the history and biographies of the characters and none of the major points appear to be inaccurate. I assume people just are not sure how to classify it and so opted for "fiction." While I enjoyed and was fascinated by this book, I also do worry that it promotes a somewhat unfortunate and harmful narrative as a "mad genius" who discovers knowledge so profound and devastating that it ruins them as people. Though, that appears to be what did actually happen to several of greatest minds of the 20th century who developed theories in physics, mathematics, and chemistry that have changed our world and not always for the better. Which I do appreciate as a foil against the tendency to celebrate genius and breakthroughs as necessarily good when that is not always the case.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Drug use, Genocide, Addiction, Mental illness, War, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Sexual assault

A lot of the book is preoccupied with some of the worst atrocities in human history and how our understanding of science made them possible. It's inevitably extremely disturbing, but I don't think the author was needlessly graphic so much as frank.

alyx's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

I'm still trying to figure this book out. I'm not sure what I think about it, but I know I'll be thinking about it for a long time. A frequent word I've heard used to describe When We Cease to Understand the World is "haunting," and I can't imagine a more apt descriptor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Terminal illness, Animal death, Pedophilia, Chronic illness, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Excrement, and War

Moderate: Alcohol, Medical content, Cancer, Child death, Antisemitism, Drug use, and Genocide

faustinagut_'s review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

Azul de Prusia y el cuento principal sobre el origen de la mecánica cuántica son definitivamente los highlights del libro. Se disfruta mucho más teniendo un entendimiento previo mínimo de las teorías atómicas, del mundo subatomico y la física que trata de describirlo.

Sentí que no esta muy logrado el intento de hacer el relato más literario que técnico (por eso creo que alguien que no conoce o no le interesa el tema puede dejarlo sin terminar), pero la discusión filosófica está ahí, salvando las papas cuando crees que se transformó en una historia de cuántica y nombres famosos. El momento donde la ciencia empieza a ser consciente de que ya no es contemplativa sino que el método científico no puede separarse del objeto que estudia, modificándolo en el camino.

Completamente innecesaria la descripción explicita de Schrödinger siendo un viejo verde, no aporta nada a la historia. La sexualización de menores de edad en manos autores masculinos ya es hartante, por más que en la época se "usara" que hombres estén con mujeres mas chicas (que no), este ni siquiera es el caso y no veo más que morbo de quien escribe en el intento de ahondar en eso. 

La presencia del gas presentado al comienzo durante todo el trayecto me pareció un lindo detalle y el momento eureka de Heisenberg con la referencia a la bomba atómica me pareció excelente. 

Como terca odiadora de las matemáticas en su expresión más pura y abstracta, no me gustaron los cuentos donde es protagonista. Pero eso es una falta mía.

"No es nuestro lugar decirle a Él cómo manejar el mundo". 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Drug use, Animal death, Child death, War, and Death