Reviews tagging 'Grief'

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

140 reviews

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

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

ladyhunbun's review

adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.75

A really interesting view of individual stories and dynamic characters. I do wish we could have spent more time with some of the characters but liked that we got almost an overhead fire of the world in the aftermath of a pandemic so like our own. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Grief, Child death, Death of parent, Chronic illness, and Death

heytaytay12's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

Dark, disturbing, and deeply hopeful. 

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Content Warnings

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

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

the_kristin_amber's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Gorgeously dark. Haunting. 
Told in woven narratives this novel is elegant yet very dark. I couldn't put it down but wished I could.

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Content Warnings

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

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

sshabein's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.5

SO sad in some spots, but what a great book. I loved how all the connections between different sections fell into place,

Weirdly paired well with having just read Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park and also The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, even though they have vastly different plots, but the speculative nature of all three makes me feel like they are a part of the same universe, all reacting to larger forces in the world that we may or may not be fully aware of.

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Content Warnings

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

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