You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
this book made me think so hard on where we go after life is over... lovely writing and interesting concept. well done and enjoyable.
I'm just not a fan of the Titanic mythos, nor of afterlife stories. Well-told, but it didn't appeal to me particularly.
This was sort of an interesting premise, but I finally got a little tired of the prose and the characters.
This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. The book centers around people studying the near death experiences or NDEs but to say the book is about that would be to sell it short. The writing in this novel is amazing. I tend to see or suspect almost every twist in every story but the big twist in the middle of this book caught me completely by surprise. The characters are well realized, the ideas and themes explored are complex. Overall a fantastic read.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Connie Willis is one of a kind. She manages to take an incredible thing (time travel, near death experiences) and turn it into the everyday mundane, yet make those mundane details seem incredible and exciting. This book was fascinating and enjoyable. Knocked down to 4 stars though because the last 1/3 was a bit unnecessary and dragged a bit, also (as a medical researcher) some of the research protocols were kind of dodgy!
Although perhaps not up to the excellence of some of her other work, a strong story and complex characters from Willis again, this time an posing interesting questions about science and spirituality as a group of people investigate the phenomenon of near death experiences.
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i picked this up looking for sheri tepper books; i'd read bellwether by willis before and the premise intrigued me! passage was gooood. it's one of those books that you finish and have to just sit for a minute. i also really love books that are well-researched and detailed and this is totally one of them.
this is one of the longest books i've read in a while but i think i picked a good reentry into long books. the beginning was kind of hard to adjust to, but after i got past the main plot points given on the back of the book, i felt like i was alongside joanna landers, desperate to know what she would come to know.
as for my complicated diversity rating - i think that technically the characters are diverse, but it did kind of irk me that only characters of color were pointed out, and we're kind of left to assume if a character's race/ethnicity isn't mentioned, they're white. obviously not a deal breaker for me cause this was still a great read! and thinking of other kinds of diversity, there were different life experiences, the main protagonists are all able bodied.....so its complicated for me.
this is one of the longest books i've read in a while but i think i picked a good reentry into long books. the beginning was kind of hard to adjust to, but after i got past the main plot points given on the back of the book, i felt like i was alongside joanna landers, desperate to know what she would come to know.
as for my complicated diversity rating - i think that technically the characters are diverse, but it did kind of irk me that only characters of color were pointed out, and we're kind of left to assume if a character's race/ethnicity isn't mentioned, they're white. obviously not a deal breaker for me cause this was still a great read! and thinking of other kinds of diversity, there were different life experiences, the main protagonists are all able bodied.....so its complicated for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma
Minor: Addiction, Child death, Gun violence
extra content warning that I wasn't able to find: explicit detail about disasters
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Read this for a book club and because my husband loves it. Not a bad premise (but not really that fascinating to me either)...but the characters were very sparsely drawn and it was about 400 pages too long.