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adammuly's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Death
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Violence, Infidelity, and Suicide
belgian_fantasy_fan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Violence, Death, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Sexual assault and Infidelity
berodatheelf's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Blood
Minor: Death, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Medical content, Child death, Grief, Suicide, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent
pacifickat's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A lot of disappointed reviewers seemed to want this book to be more than it was, the plot to follow a traditional post-apocalyptic road narrative, with characters fighting for survival in a dystopian landscape punctuated by violent encounters. However, Mandel seems to resist these expected devices, focusing instead on how humans are connected across time and space, nature and technology, and generations. The pandemic in this story demarcates a divide between past and present, a clear before and after. But, is existence more than our perceived notion of time and oir relationship to pivotal moments in history? Does a web of interconnectivity carry through all existence even when we cannot perceive it, even when the world seemingly ends? What is this reality we’re living in? Is it patterned beforehand, or only when looked at it in retrospect, like a forest ecosystem growing organically together? Can meaning and beauty miraculously arise out of mundanity and messiness? Is being briefly and beautifully alive and part of a cosmic whole enough of a miracle in itself? Do we make stories, or do the stories make us? What exists because of us, and what exists outside of us?
It’s complicated.
This seeming magic encircles and envelops conscious existence, but goes unnoticed by the humans navigating the complexities of the pre-pandemic modern world, or fighting to survive in post-pandemic reality. A repeated element of looking upward to the sky when faced with death carries throughout, perhaps searching for sufficient meaning or beauty when survival is not guaranteed and everything finally falls still. Is this akin to the sublime moment the actress dissolves into Titania on stage, her stained wedding gown becoming the adornment of a magical fairy queen?
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, Grief, Murder, and Gun violence
Moderate: Infidelity, Pedophilia, Violence, and Child death
Minor: Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, Rape, and Alcoholism
fkshg8465's review against another edition
- 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? No
4.0
Graphic: Abandonment, Death, Suicide, Gun violence, Grief, Violence, Rape, and Infidelity
quinnyquinnquinn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Death of parent, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, and Gun violence
Minor: Suicide and Rape
nicolescottwv's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Infidelity
oriana095's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Infidelity and Death
Minor: Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Kidnapping, Child death, Rape, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Death of parent, and Domestic abuse
amberelizabeth7's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.75
This was a recommendation and while slightly slow to get into, turned out magnificently and I already kind of want to reread for stuff I likely missed.
I would say defo check trigger warnings, and don’t read if it’s too soon to read vividly your worst fears for how the recent pandemic could’ve gone….
“I’m talking about these people who’ve ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They’ve done what’s expected of them they want to do something different but that’s impossible now, there’s a mortgage, kids, whatever, they’re trapped. Dan’s like that.” …. “….high functioning sleepwalkers, essentially” … “… I think people like him think work is supposed to be drudgery punctuated by very occasional moments of happiness, but when I say happiness, I mostly mean distraction. You know what I mean?”
Graphic: Death of parent, Abandonment, Death, Suicide, Pandemic/Epidemic, Infidelity, and Animal death
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, and Gun violence
tremayna's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Infidelity
Moderate: Violence, Domestic abuse, Classism, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Religious bigotry, Death, and Gun violence
Minor: Child death, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Suicide, Confinement, Rape, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Medical content, and Pedophilia
Written before the 2020 pandemic, this book about a fictional global viral event was disorienting to read in the year 2023, so closely following the eerily parallel events that came to pass in real life. Much of the real life pandemic is still in progress; its effects continue to leave their mark; the process of compartmentalizing memories of things surreal and too big to process without a biweekly therapy plan is still happening. Picking up this book jolted me back into the thick of pandemic thinking, creating a literal sense of disorientation where I was looking around me wondering how people could be sitting so close, maskless, touching everything without thought, when I hadn't seen the world that way in at least a year and a half. For that reason alone, I have to commend the writing. And at the same time, the author's delicate touch and the many moments of human normalcy, in both pre-event and post-event scenes, prevented the complete despair that could have pervaded this story. I felt St John Mandel balanced total devastation with enough possibility to keep the reader believing in the likelihood of meaningful survival without overdoing it and allowing the story to devolve into purely a feel good fantasy.