Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin

4 reviews

holly_keimig's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense 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

3.5

This book is probably something I would not have read if not for book club. It was on the line for me on books I can read with occasionally poor personal mental health and there were definitely moments I was not wanting to keep reading. That said, it was a very interesting concept and led to a good book club discussion. The shifting perspective was a little hard to follow at times and left me wanting more in places. I felt "lost" for most of the book and then when things did start to connect near the end, the pace felt so frantic that it was almost stressful to read (think this may have been intentional by the author). I have always been interested in memory and how the mind processes things and this story was an interesting exploration of how the world would work if memories could be deleted and/or restored and all of the consequences that come with it. Interesting characters and dark in places, but hopeful in others. Good book for sci-fi thriller types and those who are interested in how the brain works. A little too far on the dark side for me personally, but still a good book.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Dementia, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

eachz's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Really enjoyed this! I've been disappointed with other speculative fiction that gets way too hung up on the details of the science/tech setting and neglects the characters and the universal themes to be explored against that backdrop. Tell Me an Ending, to me, did what I always hope for, and made the novel mostly about the characters and how the phenomenon of memory deletion/restoration can play out in many different ways. 

While there was a lot of tragedy in this story I think it left me feeling hopeful and fond of humans in all our messiness.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

random19379's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Dementia, Medical trauma, Car accident, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape

sarah984's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

I was so excited for this book because the memory removal concept holds so much potential, but almost nothing in this book worked for me. The most interesting chapters were Noor's because they explored what working in the clinic was actually like. Most of the characters were disagreeable in uninteresting ways and every time there was suspense it was resolved in the most boring way possible. The ending dragged on way longer than it needed to.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness and Car accident

Moderate: Ableism, Death, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Vomit, Islamophobia, and Abandonment