Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Ascension by Nicholas Binge

5 reviews

torismazarine's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug use, Suicide, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Panic attacks/disorders, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Blood, Cursing, Dementia, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, Animal death, Self harm, Ableism, Murder, and Death

Minor: War

There's a lot of talk about religion and faith, the characters argue a lot about it (I'm paraphrasing here, but at some point a charachter says religious people are stupid, others have very strong faith, and for some of them it's fluctuating throughout).

There's also monsters and aliens, that are described extensively. At different points in the story people drown, get frostbite and altitude sickness, which are ways to die not in the content warnings, although reading a book about climbing a mountain the latter two could be guessed.

mandolin77's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad 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? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death, Child death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Violence, and Mental illness

maddie_can_read's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Feel conflicted about the book.
First part grabbed my attention with the setting up of the mystery but I felt like the second half really dragged and the payoff wasn't as satisfying as the build-up made it seem like it would be.

I wish more time had been spent at the end of the novel explaining the aliens/ the seeds/ the leviathans/the death and afterlife/ why the last characters killed themselves etc

I probably would not have finished it if I hadn't been hooked by the mystery. Think there were a bit too many themes to do them all justice

(religion, grief, death/loss, regret, all the science stuff, mountain-climbing, people going mad )

.  I liked the writing style and found it easy to read. Personally I didn't enjoy the extended descriptions of

people losing their minds descending into madness.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Violence, Body horror, Gore, Dementia, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, and Mental illness

death of a child

pkc's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

I r njoyed the plot here. So much going on, all of it resolved to some extent which I loved. Questions about humanity are explored using this metaphor and while there can never be answers, it was intriguing to ponder them within the setting. If you’re looking for a book with likeable protagonists, personally, I’d swerve this one. You may like Harold but I found him reasonably ineffectual and awful. That being said, I thought the plot was super inventive, adventurous and wild. The mountain as a character was intriguing and made for some epic set pieces 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Blood, Child death, Suicide, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Mental illness, Physical abuse, and Vomit

alireads's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Gun violence, Body horror, Violence, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Confinement, Grief, Bullying, Mental illness, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Kidnapping, Suicide, and Religious bigotry