Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Station Elva by Emily St. John Mandel

193 reviews

chelsealauren17's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Suicide

rosa_lina96's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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

3.5

A haunting, somewhat bittersweet book about life after a global pandemic wipes out a good 98% of humanity (which becomes somewhat harsher in hindsight after going through the debacle that was Covid, but I digress). The writing was tight, I have to say. Poetic and meaningful, and the jumps back and forth that we got timeline-wise actually seemed to make sense to me. I'm also just a sucker for stories that deal with how humans can band together (or vice versa) in times of great strife, as well as speculative fiction about post-apocalyptic scenarios, and the main characters being part of a traveling symphony of performers just managed to scratch some itch within me to a satisfying degree. I'd honestly love to see that subject matter handled in more post-apocalyptic stories. You're telling me there's simply no performance art to be found anywhere after society collapses? No way for people to just take their minds off of how shitty their situation is even for a couple of hours? I call humbug. 

Rating it a bit lower because there were certain plot points that didn't end up being as well-developed as I thought they could be--what about these "ferals" that we keep hearing about, are they crazed from the illness or something else, and what the heck happened outside of America throughout this entire societal collapse, and are there larger settlements outside of this very particular region that we deal with in the book, and how exactly are they managing to cultivate food without certain technological measures? Some characters felt rather woefully underdeveloped as well, and I'm sorry, but the identity of who the cult leader more than likely was was a twist I saw coming from a mile away. 

Still, it was a pretty solid book. I look forward to reading more from this author sometime in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide and Murder

Minor: Child death and Adult/minor relationship

jillianselene's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Suicide, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, and Confinement

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, and Kidnapping

Minor: Gun violence, Medical content, Rape, and Pregnancy

rhall19's review against another edition

emotional sad tense

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Death

Moderate: Gun violence

kaiyakaiyo'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? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

not much to say about this one! if i had to compare, sea of tranquility was much more interesting and i liked it better, but this is a solid book as well! 

im sleepy so no long review; the writing is very nice on the eyes and the shifting perspectives actually really enhanced the story instead of just breaking it up for forced suspense like in some books. would recommend!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, Religious bigotry, Child death, and Suicide

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Child abuse

Minor: Rape and Sexual assault

robynlousia's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, and Suicide

Moderate: Child abuse and Violence

adammuly's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Death

Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Violence, Infidelity, and Suicide

goodfriendguy's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Terminal illness, and Murder

Minor: Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Suicide

builtonbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

I read this on Easter weekend, a break from my cultural industries masters program, this somehow made more invested in my program. As a museum practitioner the scenes at the Museum of Civilization moved me so much. I binge read it from Good Friday to Black Saturday 2024 and somehow, as a lapsed Catholic, the timing felt right. 

Beautiful uncompromising writing with moments that gave me goosebumps. Reading this in 2024, year 4 post COVID-19 was a wild ride, and I'm glad I waited till now to read it. It also made me miss home, family, and the light and heat of my country.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical trauma, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Rape

Minor: Animal death

cults

larissakoch's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Animal death, Death, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Rape and Suicide