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A review by hyuzen
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
5.0
The quality of this book kind of crept up on me. Once it's over and you understand how things are connected it's a beautiful tapestry of vignettes featuring people living in the midst and aftermath of a devastating virus.
Filled with despair and grief in equal measure to hope and premise, this is a challenging read to start. It deals with very heavy subjects relating to death on a macro and micro scale, across all ages. Grief shatters people, shatters relationships. Sometimes the virus only accelerates issues that were under the surface before. But within all that are people seeking connection.
Across the chapters characters and objects reappear, with new perspectives giving new insight and knowledge that makes you want to go back and re-read earlier chapters to appreciate them in new ways.
As an aside, I think this book is a great example of why StoryGraph's review categories seem limiting. Trying to distill this down to whether it's character or plot focused, or whether the characters were loveable just feels like it's missing the point.
But that's beside the point. This was a remarkable read and if you can handle the darkness you'll be rewarded.
Filled with despair and grief in equal measure to hope and premise, this is a challenging read to start. It deals with very heavy subjects relating to death on a macro and micro scale, across all ages. Grief shatters people, shatters relationships. Sometimes the virus only accelerates issues that were under the surface before. But within all that are people seeking connection.
Across the chapters characters and objects reappear, with new perspectives giving new insight and knowledge that makes you want to go back and re-read earlier chapters to appreciate them in new ways.
As an aside, I think this book is a great example of why StoryGraph's review categories seem limiting. Trying to distill this down to whether it's character or plot focused, or whether the characters were loveable just feels like it's missing the point.
But that's beside the point. This was a remarkable read and if you can handle the darkness you'll be rewarded.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Death of parent, Terminal illness, Death, and Animal death