Reviews tagging 'Schizophrenia/Psychosis '

Jonathan Strange & il Signor Norrell by Susanna Clarke

5 reviews

mkaiww's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

I love the use of foot notes it makes the world feel expensive and lived in like there is more information just off screen that is excluded simply because it's not the focus of the book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War

Moderate: Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Medical trauma, and Gaslighting

Minor: Gun violence and Hate crime

hfrancesh's review against another edition

challenging funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War

Minor: Gun violence, Racism, and Slavery

blacksphinx's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-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

If you are someone who is any level of dedicated to the occult arts, particularly those you learn extensively out of books like ancient astrology, grimoire magic, traditional witchcraft, or a reconstructionist polytheism, this book is for us. The society of magicians in York is so true to many groups and individuals I have met that I felt compelled to read the first page and a half out loud to the occultists and close friends of occultists I met up with while reading this book, who could not stop smiling and shaking their head at it. If you feel the same way about those opening paragraphs, it is worth your time to continue on with the entire tome. 

What ultimately robbed it from being 5 Stars in my eyes is that it was too long! This book is fantastic but it didn't need to be over 800 pages. It is maddening how many times characters not sharing information with each other prevents the right action from occurring until hundreds of pages later. There was a point where I thought I was never going to finish this damn thing and I felt about it akin to a textbook I was reading for class. And then we finally get a large jolt of plot progression in the last ~150 so pages that was so satisfying it kept me from from going down to a flat 4 Stars. 

Sidenote: this book contains period-typical racism, in both remarks made about Jewish people and one of our main PoV characters being a Black man in London in the early 1800's.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Racism, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Sexism, Slavery, and Alcohol

Minor: Fatphobia, Transphobia, and Antisemitism

tallnecked_pancakeface's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Slavery, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Classism

Minor: Mental illness

footnotes

kathleencoughlin's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

4.25

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a cross between historical fiction and fantasy that follows these two men as they research magical history and practice and attempt to carve out a place for magic in England. I enjoyed reading about the eccentric magicians, but I think it's the secondary characters who really bring the story to life. The book is quite long, can be slow at times, and is heavily character-driven so I hesitate to recommend it to most, but for the right audience it is a delight. I loved the additional lore and context added through footnotes and thought it was a clever way to bring in more info and mirror the magical texts the characters might be reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Animal death, Sexism, Gaslighting, War, and Classism

Minor: Death of parent and Murder