Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

9 reviews

juliawren's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

Unique writing style - equally beautiful and childlike at times. It's so interesting to see a post apocalyptic world from the perspective of a child, even one like Melanie, and the author did a great job of showing that there's always a kind of hope to be found even in the darkest of times. 

The plot slowed down significantly in the middle and required a bit of powering through, and parts of the ending felt a bit abrupt because of the difference in pacing, but I didn't mind that it wrapped up quickly, and it was satisfying both to have the mystery revealed and to have it fit so cleanly into the characters' arcs. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Vomit, Violence, Child death, Cannibalism, Suicidal thoughts, Gore, Ableism, Blood, Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror

Minor: Animal death

lpogo16's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-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

This is less horror and more a fantasy journey story. 

The story could have been edited down. There’s a lot that happens for the shock value or to make comments about other characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Blood, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Cannibalism, Confinement, Violence, Medical content, and Murder

Minor: Gun violence, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, and Kidnapping

Spores, Mushrooms, Fungus

blewballoon's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This was even better than I expected! Such a well written, compelling story. I went in pretty much blind and I definitely recommend reading it that way, the suspense and unraveling of information is great. I listened to this on audiobook that had some soundtrack music and sound effects, which was also expertly done. The narrator was perfect, and the added music and sounds were subtle and added tension and atmosphere. I would have given it 5 stars if it weren't for

The army guy's having unpleasant fixations on sexualizing women. I really hated reading those parts, they added nothing to the plot and made the characters voicing them seem excessively stupid.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Cursing, Gun violence, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, Alcohol, and Sexual content

prufrockpreptooth's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

4.5

OK, bah, j'ai pas pu le lâcher une fois la seconde moitié arrivée, globalement 😅 J'ai tout dévoré : l'aventure est prenante, les relations entre les personnages bien développées et intéressantes, et surtout, surtout, tout un côté scientifique qui essaye vraiment de rendre tout ça crédible - et même si on est jamais à 100%, j'adore les histoires qui essayent d'être scientifiquement crédibles, alors forcément, j'ai adoré.

Et presque, Caldwell a fini par être le personnage qui j'ai préféré (et aussi, détesté, faut pas se leurrer) le plus !

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Murder, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Cannibalism, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, and Gun violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Alcohol, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: War, Grief, and Genocide

ghostlyprince's review against another edition

dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

Minor: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Sexual harassment

A character throughout most of the book is slowly dying from blood poisoning and I'm not sure if that'd fall under the 'terminal illness' tag or not, A character steals a grenade so that if he's in a fatal situation he can go out on his own terms, a character later in the book does something similar

shieldbearer's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-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

4.0

An extremely strong showing from Mike Carey, who I know from his work on X-Men. The characterizations were very well done for the most part- most of them are quite layered. The worldbuilding was strong, and the reviewers asking questions about motivations and "evolution" clearly didn't pay attention because those things were explained in the text. 

Ultimately, a few small things did knock this book down by a star for me. For one, I would have

at least switched the fates of Parks and Gallagher, though I also think you could make an argument for Gallagher's survival being more interesting than his death given the detailed backstory and internal conflict he's given. His interaction with the status quo at the end of the story would have been extremely interesting IMO

Part of this may be because I didn't particularly care for Parks, but this is also because Parks doesn't really have anything interesting going on. 

For another, I feel as though

the Hungry children were too easy to corral at the end.

The questions of the long-term viability of Melanie's plan didn't bother me because  that's not the point of the story. 

Finally, and most glaring IMO,

I feel like Sparks would have encoutnered pregnant hungries if they are able to sexually reproduce. I just have a hard time believing this aspect without a little extra narrative support - especially given how often fatal pregnancy is, and how the fungus wrecks so much of the body and shuts down a lot of its systems. Even mentioning a pregnant hungry in the crowd would have helped. I also can't say I'm a fan of the whole "sex is a human instinct" theme. I expected there to be adult hungries like Melanie that showed up later, if they specified that only the kids were the unique ones earlier I somehow missed it.

Either way, I definitely recommend this even if I feel some elements could have been treated with a bit more care- which is about what I would say about his work on the X-Men, as well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Gaslighting, Death, Gun violence, Medical content, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Ableism, Alcohol, Gun violence, Grief, Alcoholism, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Pregnancy, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Car accident

reddeddy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, Animal death, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Vomit, and War

Moderate: Mental illness, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Stalking, Suicide, Terminal illness, Car accident, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Eating disorder, and Grief

Minor: Abortion, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Sexism, and Misogyny

jextown's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Child abuse, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, and War

I found the idea of a child being dehumanized, locked up, muzzled and naked at some points distressing throughout this book.

tiemzahra's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Melanie’s routine was fixed every day. Every day, she would wait to be picked from her cell to the classroom, at gunpoint and strapped in a chair. She thought they didn’t like her. 

 

This is a story of zombie apocalypse and I thought I could never be interested with this genre. I bought this book with the prospective of extraordinary kid, never thought she would be a zombie/hungry. But I stand corrected.

This book has given the perspective I always look for in a book - moral ambiguity. 

 

Introducing Sergeant Parks, the military guy who was rigid, had no exceptions in his rules; hungries are hungries, no matter if they look human or a literal child. He would treat them with contempt, because for him, they were threats. Dr. Caldwell, a purely logical-thinking scientist, treating the kid hungries as test subjects. They were important for the sake of humanity progression. Feeling sorry for them only hinder their progress with the dying civilisation. And Miss Justineau, despite the nature of the kids, treated them with compassion. She believed they were just innocent sensitive kids and didn’t deserve any of the mistreatments in the centre. 

 

Miss Justineau might be the most morally right, but with the current situation they were in, you would understand both Parks and Caldwell’s POV, and will be stuck in moral dilemmas.

I personally agree with the three of them at different situations, and even Miss Justineau at times was being dramatic that she almost jeopardised the whole crew. Parks’ instinct ensured their survival, while Caldwell’s study led to the new world they had to prepare for. While Justineau, with her compassionate personality, would be educating the future leaders of the new world.

I just concluded that these three distinctions were necessary to keep them going. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide attempt

Minor: Vomit and War