Reviews tagging 'Death'

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

34 reviews

chandlery's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Child death, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Grief, Blood, Classism, and Vomit

Minor: Suicide and Animal death

katjacatbeans's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

The story craft of this book is impeccable. It's a real masterclass in plot building & character development. The prose & dialog are equally good - though I'm pretty sure that '"Yes," said Dunworthy' appears at least 100 times (it fits his character) - and it's heart-rending in all the right places.  

There are certainly some grotesque descriptions of illness, but it's not overwrought and is balanced between portraying the reality of the character's experience & sparing the reader. 

The text lives up to its title. It's bleak, and sad. The direness is broken up by having 2 storyline ( 1 in each century) and by Finch's comic relief. Finch is so important because this book is prescient; having just lived through COVID, it's absolutely wild to read that an author in 1992 would so accurately project a lot of the attitudes and difficulties of 2020. Human behavior doesn't really change that much, i guess. All she had to do was look back at the 1918 epidemic & update it a bit for modern elements (like faster turnaround on vaccines). Even the brief mention of "the Canadian Goose Flu of 2010" in the book is utterly wild because there WAS an outbreak of avian flu from December 2010-May 2011. Surely that was just happenstance but with everything else she got right, it's eerie. 

I really, really appreciate how well the medical stuff is researched (I've listened to a LOT of This Podcast Will Kill You and can verify that the book text lines up with the info in the episodes on cholera, typhoid, etc) and how determined the characters are to help care for each other. It's one of the few hopeful bright spots.

All in all, even though this is a 26hr audiobook, I'm sad to be finished with it. I wish it was longer; an epilogue would do my heart a lot of good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Vomit, Alcohol, Blood, Sexual assault, Child death, Medical content, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Misogyny, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Animal death and Grief

philosopher_kj's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Terminal illness, Vomit, Child death, Body horror, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Classism, Grief, Animal death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcohol, Cursing, and Rape

dananana's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

There is something incredibly breathtaking about reading a long, slow-build, incredibly detailed book such as this one. You spend so much time in the world that you begin to feel like you were there too. And in a way I WAS in the 1300s with Kivrin, with Mr Dunworthy as he tried to reach her from 2054. These characters are going to stay in my mind and heart forever and I feel so lucky to have read this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Child death, Death, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, and Blood

dark_lyn's review against another edition

dark funny informative sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.0

This was such a fun concept, but it moved so... very... slowly. I think it could have been shorter. The author was spot on with her prediction of how the USA would handle a pandemic! She did not grasp how mobile phones would evolve though. A major factor was characters struggling to reach each other by phone, and having to borrow a phone from whatever building they were in. Which made it feel like the story was set in the past, despite the futuristic video phones, medical advancement and time travel machines. This story was full of dry humour, but it was not lighthearted, it dealt with some very dark topics.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, Child death, Terminal illness, and Vomit

Minor: Animal death

Spoiler

Graphic description of plague symptoms and deaths. Epidemic outbreak and reflection on a past pandemic.

iris_garden's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, Child death, Medical content, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Classism, Grief, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death of parent, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Abandonment, Antisemitism, Infidelity, Rape, Self harm, and Alcohol

fahyhallowell's review

adventurous emotional funny sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Fascinating to read this tale of two epidemics in the midst of our current pandemic. Many elements ring true such as conspiracy theorists popping up. Aside from time travel, the technology is comiclly antique - phones had video screens but that's about it. I appreciated the classic British humor in the present as a break from the grimness of the past. 100% recommend!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Terminal illness, and Blood

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Child death

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Classism

rachelish's review against another edition

adventurous sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Gore, Terminal illness, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Death of parent, Animal death, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, and Animal cruelty

speasyspice's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Vomit, Death, and Terminal illness

bannedfrombookclub's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.0

This three star review is an average between my two readings. Back in 2012 I loved it and gave it four stars, then in 2021 admists the pandemic I thought I'd re-read it and hated it, giving it two stars. It's so funny to see how my enjoyment has changed so much.

Things I still enjoyed included:
- The characters and world in medieval England
- The time-travel mechanism concept.
- The clueless/self-interested response by people to a plague/pandemic was uncomfortably accurate, now that we all know what that looks like.

Things that really irked on the second read:
- The talking in circles about the same issue (this only gets worse in Book 3, Blackout), characters just spin their wheels (noisily, into your reading eyes) while waiting for word count to tick over to the next plot point.
- Pacing
- The passivity of both main characters.  Kivrin never seemed to make a choice that impacted the plot, it would have helped me if she'd had a chance to leave and decided to stay and help/complete her drop for selfish reasons.

Spoiler

- Kivrin never reflects on the madness of her plan to take the priest and try to travel to safety - going against all she knows about spreading disease and her training as a timetravelling historian. I can see her thinking at the time, but the immorality of this is not addressed. Again, this could have been a choice she made - she could have considered it and decided not to. This would have made her a stronger character. 

I'm frankly afraid to re-read To Say Nothing of the Dog in case I have the veil once again lifted from my eyes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, and Animal death