Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Ascension by Nicholas Binge

21 reviews

andrew_matteson's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.25

I found Ascension is a fun horror read with Lovecraftian tropes. There are scenes that are memorable in their shock value, and the abiding sense of cosmic horror is well done. Basically all the characters, except the narrator, are flawed in their two dimensionality. This leaves several reveals in the book quite wanting, especially the final ones.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Death

Moderate: Violence and Suicide

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.

ambert's review

adventurous dark informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

5.0

This book made me contemplate death and the afterlife in the exact same way The Iron Giant did as a kid. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Child death, Murder, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Death

Minor: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Death of parent

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

kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

3.0

I’m never reading a book with a mountain on the cover again. EVER

this is the second time a mountain mystery sci fi premise has led me instead to the most boring drag of a read. so much climbing detail and internal to an unbearable degree. 

worst Halloween read yet methinks. the world building was cool I guess, woulda been cooler if it didn’t come 70% through the book…

I wanted more on Neil, more on the caves, more on Naoko than being an Asian Pixie Dream Doctor there only to absorb and reflect the white main chars suffering… don’t even get me started on the adopted refugee child that lived only to be a traumatic experience for a white man. booooo tomatoes 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Violence

kitrook's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense 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

5.0

“And somehow, despite the opening of the box and the baring of my soul that I had been so certain would tear me apart, the fact that Naoko and I were talking made everything okay.” 

 

Loved this. Was not at all what I was expecting, but loved it regardless. 

 

This book is like if Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer) wrote Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer). I struggled at times because the last mountaineering-themed book I read was Into Thin Air when I was 13, and I had pretty averse reaction to it. However, this felt like a fresh twist on what I had previously read. Something Binge does quite well in Ascension is the intertwining of the romance to the plot. Often authors struggle with inserting a romance into science fiction or any non-romance genre. However, in this case the romantic relationship between the MC and his love interest adds layers of depth to the characters and plot that overall create a better story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Suicide

Also I know the "I am alien" twist is seen as corny or a cop-out by a lot of people who have read this, but to me it gave me chills. I felt that the simplicity made sense, with "Neil" being a god who was toying with them it made the whole thing feel much more cruel- leaving a very simple but sinister clue under their noses the whole time shows just how little their lives mattered to him.

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

blanktarget's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide and Child death

cc_shelflove's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I enjoyed this book. Strange things quickly began to happen as Harold climbed to the top of a mountain that appeared out of nowhere. Its ending was twisty, reminiscent of the Netflix series 1899. It’s hard to write a review without giving away spoilers… Read it if you like weird stuff, I guess. 😂

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Suicide, Gun violence, and Blood

Minor: War

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