Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

7 reviews

pacifickat's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

5.0

*review pending*

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Cursing, Death, and Grief

Minor: Mental illness and Alcohol

Child neglect, memory problems, hallucinations, difficulty discerning reality

emilywemily6's review against another edition

mysterious reflective medium-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? It's complicated

4.5

I really enjoyed this book! The author’s writing is really captivating and I loved how all the storylines connected. This was strange sci fi but in a more approachable way than other strange sci fi novels (ex. Annihilation). I also really like the things that I reflected on as the reader and the things that the characters learned through their experiences. I just wish I had more of everything this novel has! More character depth for some of the characters that were skimped out on and more details about the impacts of time travel would have made this perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed myself the whole time I listened to this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Death and Grief

Minor: Gun violence, Vomit, Alcohol, and War

brookebatesratesbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing and Death

thebowandthebook's review against another edition

mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.25

Really enjoyable novel, short but drew me in. A few unanswered questions at the end but it mostly wrapped up nicely. Clean, one or two swear words, relationships (both hetero and gay featured) didn't have any graphic content. Very enjoyable listen.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Cursing and Suicide

theverycraftyvegan's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-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

5.0

I would give this book 10/5 if I could. It’s so beautifully written that “perfect” is the best way to describe it. This is science fiction that is so deeply based on reality that it is 100% believable. This could be our future. This might *need* to be our future. It was a little confusing at the start, because we spend only a little time with each character, but by the half way point I was enthralled. I loved how all the characters tied in together and the ending was *chef’s kiss*. 

I will definitely be reading more of Emily St John Mandel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Confinement, Alcohol, Colonisation, and War

Minor: Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

meganfletcher's review against another edition

mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Gun violence and Murder

Minor: Cursing, Death, Suicide, Colonisation, and War

miller8d's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Emily St. John Mandel is the only author I’ve ever read as an adult whose writing is effortlessly legible— I don’t have to drag myself through the continuation of the logic, the story, the names and details. She is an incredible world-builder and crafts her books in a way that kindly takes all pressure off the reader to painstakingly translate the story as they go, and she does it without losing the substance nor the sophisticated chaos of the story. She includes unnecessary yet enriching details everywhere so that you never quite catch on to the endings (unlike so many stories that make me think “Oh, well, that must be foreshadowing something”). I had a complicated

feeling of disappointment at the ending of the story: I was pulled to finish this book in two days because I was so excited to learn the explanation for the anomaly, and when I turned the final page, I said “Oh, come on” out loud because I did not feel like I got one at all in the moment. I found the twist exciting and sweet and logical but emotionally frustrating at first. But since I completed the book twenty minutes ago, I’ve realized I’m not actually disappointed because that is actually the most natural and truthful ending there ever could have been, and it rings true to the entire story, to the nature of time and space and boring explanations for exciting anomalies. It shines light on the entire hero’s journey and disarms us with a lonely sense of naked responsibility over the choices we make and especially over the universally lackluster inevitability of the logical consequences of the choices we make. I also really love how Mandel softly infused a strong clarity of anti-colonization and anti-cop sanity throughout the actions and beliefs of the lovable characters— refreshing to read a sci-fi/fictional/apocalyptic piece that doesn’t bury the lead of what evils are obviously leading us toward the darkness (colonization and cops, etc.), and refreshing to read any fictional book that pursues a leftist narrative through world-building and plot points, instead of just veering recklessly into harmful tokenization, superimposed racial dynamics written by a white author, and so on. I also just realized I liked the red herring of Vincent falling off into the sea— at the time, I was 100% sure she’d been teleported by the anomaly and that we must meet her later on. Fun to think that perhaps she did teleport somehow but that we’ll never know because Gaspery never knows.

I loved this book. 
Note: I pictured Gaspery as Jacob Wysocki from College Humor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, Colonisation, Classism, and Deportation

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Blood, Vomit, Car accident, and Alcohol

I’m quite a sensitive person and even I’d say that despite the content warnings for this book, it is not an upsetting read (at least for me). The mentions of upsetting topics are justified and unsurprising in the context of the book, and very rarely is any upsetting detail given for the sake of indulgent displeasure. The bits that did upset me were

the bit about someone losing both their two partners tragically to sudden death, and the gnarly set of detailed memories toward the end of the book about a veteran’s battlefield trauma.