Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - The Luminous Dead

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

30 reviews

wickedmitch's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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librarymouse's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

The Luminous Dead calls into question the reliability of its characters' perception and creates such a thick fog of paranoia and confusion that it remains tangible even after the end of the novel. Both characters are terrible people who are terrible to each other.

I don't really know that this was the case, but my interpretation of events is that the tunneler was using the likenesses of those who died in the tunnel's depths to lure victims to reveal themselves. However, Gyre's fever, the spores, and the general paranoia of her time in the tunnels makes it unprovable. Gyre feeling herself be dragged by the sporified corpse of Jenny reinforces that uncertainty of reality. Especially with the pull of the depths like the call of the void made manifest. Em is a terrible person. Sympathetic, but still terrible. She killed so many people in the search of corpses she wasn't sure would still be there, and ran when Gyre found them. They're so toxic for each other - Gyre holding the kill switch to Em's livelihood and future and Em having broken Gyre's body and mind. Not to mention Gyre's willingness to mutilate herself for the sake of getting a job for the money to get off planet and find the mother who abandoned her and whom she grows to hate, and Em's willingness to desecrate her mother's memory by sending caver after caver down into the depths that swallowed her parents, only to turn away and leave Gyer alone in the dark when her father's body is found. They're terrible people and terrible for each other, but in this sort of off world horror, you kind of have to root for them.

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spaghettii's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense 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

4.5

The ending was an interesting choice

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evelikesbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-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

4.5

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afterplague's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? Yes

3.25

The Luminous Dead was an experience I wasn't expecting. If you're looking for a heart-pounding horror novel I'm afraid that you're going to be disappointed. If you wanted zombies or alien creatures I think you'd better look elsewhere.

Fundamentally, this novel is a character driven one. If you look at the plot at a surface level you'll probably be a bit bored and little disappointed. It's not that there aren't scares or tension, there is, but most of the plot is just climbing, talking, and a nervous breakdown. By describing it like this it might seem like I don't like Luminous Dead, but I think that's not true.

It's difficult to parse out my feelings and my rating of the book. I thought for ages about whether to rate this four stars or three. Objectively versus subjectively my feelings differed. I think there's something at the center of The Luminous Dead, but I don't think that it's typical of the horror genre. I don't think I was ever really scared. I was nervous at times, and maybe tense, but more than anything I just felt this creeping despair. This is not a "scary" story. It's just depressing, and it does that very well.

I'm going to go into more depth below, so please beware of spoilers.

Like I said, this is a character driven story, and so the characters have to be good to carry it. Luckily, I think they are. Gyre is our main and perspective character and Em is her woman in the chair. And that's it. There are only two characters in this entire book, and the story is just the two of them having conversations and attempting to navigate the cave.

Gyre is an excellent climber, but she has very little experience with caving jobs. She's worked as a technician, but has never actually undergone a real cave dive. She lies about her experience for a job worth more money than multiple other caving jobs combined in an attempt to get off planet and find her mother who abandoned her years ago. I like Gyre a lot. She's tough and smart, and she has a certain arrogance that drives her character into death defying scenarios. Because of this, though, she can be hotheaded, stubborn, and dangerous. She believes in her abilities and instincts, and she's usually right, but being in the cave for weeks on end definitely tests her psyche.

Em is completely different. She's very cold and extremely secretive. Her motives for sending Gyre into the cave are a complete mystery, and she is extremely controlling towards her. Em doesn't see Gyre as a human at first, violating her bodily autonomy by controlling the suit from afar. Gyre hates this and demands that she stop, but Em still occasionally sneaks her some drugs or assistance to the suit.

Their relationship is so weird and toxic, but it grows and changes into something that is closer than I could have imagined. They build trust and share things about each other. They find common ground when Em reveals that she's not exploring the cave for resources or anything valuable, she just wants to find the bodies of her parents cave diving team from twenty years ago. It's a really human moment, but Em reveals that twenty-five previous cavers have died trying to accomplish this task, and I was torn. Em's feelings and desires are valid, but her callous disregard for anyone in her search for closure makes her a monster. Gyre does call this out.

It's an interesting dynamic, and I really enjoyed one moment especially, after a lot of relationship and trust building, Em needs to fully take control of the suit and Gyre lets her. It was a really tense scene and demonstrated that even though Em sends the cavers down to the depths, she cares about them, remembers them, and feels their losses.

The cave itself is unfortunately not a very interesting environment. There are sections that are notable and memorable, like the fungi that burst into spores or the Long Drop that takes twelve hours to climb down, but most of the cave is just grey walls. The part of cave diving that really scares me is tight, enclosed spaces, but we don't really get much of that in the novel. Instead, all of the most tense parts take place in the sumps, underwater caves. Obvious cave diving is terrifying, but it just didn't hit the scarier parts of the caves.

Tension did build throughout the story and I did feel like there were legitimate threats, but I do feel like those threats were ultimately a disappointment. The Tunnelers were a frightening concept, and when we finally saw one I do believe it was well described. I just don't understand how it was defeated by being thrown off balance? That was weird. There's also the idea that someone else is in the caves, but that doesn't really go anywhere. The cave itself is also implied to be some level of haunted or supernatural or maybe it was hallucinogenic spores? It's not explained super well.

There was also a lot of back tracking which did make the pacing slog. Gyre has to progress through six camps and once she gets to six, she treks back to four, then back to five, then back to six, then back to five, then gets swept back to six, then back to five, then back to four, then back to three, then back to four and if reading this was tedious just imagine it going on for two hundred pages. The things happening are relatively exciting, but we are literally walking in circles.

The writing and intrigue were good, though. I don't want to insinuate that they weren't. The technology was also pretty cool. It's not so far advanced that it seems like a deus ex machina, but it is distinctly futuristic. The idea of not being able to feel anything or touch your own body for weeks at a time is a horror in itself.

I feel like I could talk about this for ages, contemplating the good and the bad, but I have to stop at some point. Maybe now you can get a bit of an idea of why this book was so difficult to rate.

I did enjoy The Luminous Dead, but it is kind of a vibe more than a horror novel. I wouldn't recommend this if you're looking for action and excitement. I would recommend it if you enjoy character focused stories, ambiguous supernatural events, and a slow burn.

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celina246's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

3.25

I had high hopes for this book but I’m a bit disappointed. It was by no means awful; it’s what I call a “quiet” horror, which means not a lot is necessarily happening but the atmosphere is kind of creepy and tense. But it teetered on boring too many times, and all the climbing jargon and descriptions of the cave routes made my eyes glaze over.

I wish CS had done a bit more with it, plot-wise, but it was character-centric and the characters were very annoying and unlikeable. Still, I feel like it could be a good movie.

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