Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

43 reviews

traciereads's review

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

baileyes's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

3.25

I can see it being a favorite book for many but it wasn’t really for me 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Suicide, Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Death, Grief, Cancer, Animal death, Violence, Child death, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical content, and Abandonment

musicalpopcorn's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.5

A collection of stories about people connected throughout a plague and its aftermath, How High We Go In the Dark is both dark and hopeful about humanity’s ability to persevere. 

I enjoyed the first half of this book more than I enjoyed the second half, but overall I liked the whole thing. The kind of dark surrealist stories about euthanasia parks and talking pigs were much more interesting to me than the ones that by contrast seemed like normal family dramas. I found all of the stories compelling however I also found that having every single main character feeling detached from their family got a little old after a while and made them feel like the same character every single time. 

This was a unique book with a one of a kind outlook on humanity. How it managed to be both so dark and depressing to ultimately hopeful was very well done. 

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Cancer, Stalking, Suicide, Animal death, Blood, Colonisation, and Grief

foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-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

4.25

This novel is a collection of short vignettes, following interconnected characters through their experiences with dying and death, of the people and animals around them and of the world. 

I’ve been sitting on this review for awhile because I’ve needed to collect myself and my thoughts after this depressing read. Almost grotesque in its depictions of grief, I found myself crying in horror at almost every chapter. This book reminded me a lot of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, but even more bleak and realistic.

Overall, I think this book adds something interesting to the sci-fi genre in its speculations about death industries, and to be able to give impactful characterizations in just one chapter each is impressive. I’d recommend this book to those who like well-written books that will make you feel emotionally intense, and who find medical/sci-fi/space to be intriguing.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, Vomit, Death, Death of parent, Child death, Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Terminal illness, Grief, and Classism

sgrunwald96's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

The first 5 star book I’ve read that I’m not sure I’ll read again. Brutally sad and deeply relatable in our late-capitalism, post-pandemic world. It seems so close to where we could have gone if things had gotten worse. I liked the story linkages and the unique storylines. It felt like a good reminder of how many first-person perspectives there are, even when tragedy blurs people into statistics. 

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Cancer, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, and Medical content

erinhunt's review

challenging emotional tense 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

4.75

How High We Go in the Dark is a beautifully painful exploration of life, death, and grief. The interweaving of stories is so engaging (though I docked a partial star as I didn’t experience that with some later half storylines). This is definitely going to be read again, knowing these stories will hit in different ways each time. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Death, Child death, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Terminal illness

erebus53's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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? Yes

5.0

Welp... (gets off rollercoaster) that was certainly a trip!!
I picked up this book as a buddy read from book club. As an audiobook it differed from so many books in English with many Japanese names and words by having narrators who were of Japanese descent and who could actually pronounce Japanese.. SUCH a relief! Being able to understand what people are saying is really hard when they are approximating and getting half the words so mangled it's inaudible.

This is a deeply emotional book, that I think you can only get the most out of if you invest in it. Each section of the book is from a different view point (stitched together like short stories) and they are all subtly connected which makes it really rewarding when you realise what those connections are. Each personal viewpoint deals with grief. The world depicted is stricken by a plague that is bigger and weirder than anything humanity has yet experienced. It takes our current experiences and racks the intensity to 11.

In a world that develops fun ways to enjoy euthanasia *wince*, and novel traditions for remembering and celebrating the lives of those we have lost, this story spans centuries. In so doing it deals with the loss and displacement caused by illness, ecological instability, and human affected climate change - wildfires, flooding, mass extinction... and the hopes that humanity has for colonising space in ways that will not displace indigenous life out there.

Some of the science is .. unlikely but not completely outside the bounds of possibility. You have to strap on those Suspenders of Disbelief (+4) to embrace some of the ideas about Roswell, and cryptids - but some of the heroic characters are steeped more in the idea of believing that things might be true until they can be falsified... which allows them to believe things that seem improbable.

Major themes involve the focus on family, on long-term planning and, the things that are so important that we can't be there for our children. Unlike adventure stories of the past where fathers are absent seeking glory, this deals a lot with mothers who have to step away from family obligations for a Greater Purpose, and the grief and strife that causes.

Honestly.. I am the right agegroup that most of the music talked about in this story is familiar to me. That anchors the story emotionally. There is a lot of painting and art in the narrative as well.. which highlights the creativity of humanity, and the ways that we process grief and nostalgia, and how we chronicle our history. I bawled my eyes out in many different chapters. I found this really beautiful fiction and though not all the science was airtight I will borrow the saying from Amanda Tapping "that's why they call it sci - FI". The emotional resonance makes it highly enjoyable so I'll give it a 5.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Murder, Mental illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, Terminal illness, Medical trauma, Grief, Drug use, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Abandonment and Colonisation

Minor: Sexual content and Stalking

maddie_can_read's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring 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
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Very unique book, really enjoyed it. Author was really good at getting you to care for the many characters. Lots of interesting speculative fiction and science fiction ideas. 

The first few chapters were a lot sadder than I expected and I cried 3 times and I don't normally cry for books.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Animal death

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Infidelity, and Suicide

I found the ends of chapter 2, "city of laughter" and chapter 4 "pig son Incredibly sad. Chapter 2 involves the death of a terminally ill child and chapter 4 involves the death of a terminally ill pig- hybrid who is child-like

erikakcarlson's review against another edition

hopeful mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Grief, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

lpdx's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Mental illness, Classism, Confinement, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Suicidal thoughts, Chronic illness, Suicide, Medical content, Medical trauma, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Abandonment, Colonisation, Excrement, Pregnancy, and Vomit