Reviews tagging 'Schizophrenia/Psychosis '

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

8 reviews

maddie_can_read's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious reflective 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

Found it a bit slow to get into. 
The writing and the characterization is so good that even though you're only with each of the initial characters for a short period of time (time both in terms of chapters, and time in terms of a very short period of their lives), you care for them and get a sense of who they are. Loved the writing style. Loved how everything came together at the end. 

The only thing I want from this book is more

more details about the colonies, how the time travel works, more about the time institute, more about the characters

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Suicide and Violence

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Colonisation, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

the emotional impact of the pandemic is discussed in detail and while it's not covid19 in the novel, the novel was written during covid19 so it's very evocative of this time period

sramac's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gun violence, Grief, Vomit, Suicide, Pandemic/Epidemic, War, and Death

summerb's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic and Colonisation

Minor: Chronic illness, Excrement, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Gaslighting, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Infidelity, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Vomit, Bullying, Cancer, Drug use, Mental illness, Murder, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicide

innerweststreetlibrarian's review

adventurous mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

This is such an excellent book. I’m finding it quite hard to describe why though. I think it’s the kind of story that is best entered knowing as little as possible beforehand. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicide

miller8d's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Emily St. John Mandel is the only author I’ve ever read as an adult whose writing is effortlessly legible— I don’t have to drag myself through the continuation of the logic, the story, the names and details. She is an incredible world-builder and crafts her books in a way that kindly takes all pressure off the reader to painstakingly translate the story as they go, and she does it without losing the substance nor the sophisticated chaos of the story. She includes unnecessary yet enriching details everywhere so that you never quite catch on to the endings (unlike so many stories that make me think “Oh, well, that must be foreshadowing something”). I had a complicated

feeling of disappointment at the ending of the story: I was pulled to finish this book in two days because I was so excited to learn the explanation for the anomaly, and when I turned the final page, I said “Oh, come on” out loud because I did not feel like I got one at all in the moment. I found the twist exciting and sweet and logical but emotionally frustrating at first. But since I completed the book twenty minutes ago, I’ve realized I’m not actually disappointed because that is actually the most natural and truthful ending there ever could have been, and it rings true to the entire story, to the nature of time and space and boring explanations for exciting anomalies. It shines light on the entire hero’s journey and disarms us with a lonely sense of naked responsibility over the choices we make and especially over the universally lackluster inevitability of the logical consequences of the choices we make. I also really love how Mandel softly infused a strong clarity of anti-colonization and anti-cop sanity throughout the actions and beliefs of the lovable characters— refreshing to read a sci-fi/fictional/apocalyptic piece that doesn’t bury the lead of what evils are obviously leading us toward the darkness (colonization and cops, etc.), and refreshing to read any fictional book that pursues a leftist narrative through world-building and plot points, instead of just veering recklessly into harmful tokenization, superimposed racial dynamics written by a white author, and so on. I also just realized I liked the red herring of Vincent falling off into the sea— at the time, I was 100% sure she’d been teleported by the anomaly and that we must meet her later on. Fun to think that perhaps she did teleport somehow but that we’ll never know because Gaspery never knows.

I loved this book. 
Note: I pictured Gaspery as Jacob Wysocki from College Humor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Forced institutionalization, Death, Mental illness, War, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Confinement, Deportation, Panic attacks/disorders, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Police brutality, and Body horror

Minor: Alcohol, Cursing, Vomit, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, and Car accident

I’m quite a sensitive person and even I’d say that despite the content warnings for this book, it is not an upsetting read (at least for me). The mentions of upsetting topics are justified and unsurprising in the context of the book, and very rarely is any upsetting detail given for the sake of indulgent displeasure. The bits that did upset me were

the bit about someone losing both their two partners tragically to sudden death, and the gnarly set of detailed memories toward the end of the book about a veteran’s battlefield trauma.

annaofjesup's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Confinement, Stalking, Grief, Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gaslighting

Minor: Death of parent and Suicide

Derealization, pandemic, COVID

astronut's review

emotional mysterious tense 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Grief

Minor: Gun violence, War, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, and Grief

colie923's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexism

Minor: War, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Forced institutionalization