Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

32 reviews

stellaperlic's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing sad 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

I love this book so much! Mandel always writes these eerie stories with so much character insight, interesting plot points, and hopeful/insightful endings. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Terminal illness, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Trafficking, Religious bigotry, and Child abuse

laynielayne's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse and Sexual violence

vivvs's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

liked the premise, wish the main plot had a little more oomph

Spoiler

i found myself wishing for a bigger conclusion about the prophet storyline. i liked the ending and what mandel decided to include in the dialogue and what she left unwritten

but writing was good and interesting format 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Violence, Grief, and Death

Minor: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual violence, Cancer, Medical trauma, Suicide, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Child abuse, and Child death

tremayna's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Infidelity

Moderate: Violence, Domestic abuse, Classism, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Religious bigotry, Death, and Gun violence

Minor: Child death, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Suicide, Confinement, Rape, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Medical content, and Pedophilia

Written before the 2020 pandemic, this book about a fictional global viral event was disorienting to read in the year 2023, so closely following the eerily parallel events that came to pass in real life. Much of the real life pandemic is still in progress; its effects continue to leave their mark; the process of compartmentalizing memories of things surreal and too big to process without a biweekly therapy plan is still happening. Picking up this book jolted me back into the thick of pandemic thinking, creating a literal sense of disorientation where I was looking around me wondering how people could be sitting so close, maskless, touching everything without thought, when I hadn't seen the world that way in at least a year and a half. For that reason alone, I have to commend the writing. And at the same time, the author's delicate touch and the many moments of human normalcy, in both pre-event and post-event scenes, prevented the complete despair that could have pervaded this story. I felt St John Mandel balanced total devastation with enough possibility to keep the reader believing in the likelihood of meaningful survival without overdoing it and allowing the story to devolve into purely a feel good fantasy.

Spoiler

My one remaining frustration by the end was how little of Jeevan's growth we got to see. It was thankfully alluded to in enough detail to let the reader form a picture. But as the first point of view character, he was the one that had my investment from the start, and I slightly resented Arthur's story for edging it out, especially since Jeevan's story could also have neatly covered Tyler and Elizabeth's character development.

samburkhouse's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, and Death of parent

Moderate: Kidnapping, Gore, and Murder

Minor: Child abuse and Rape

iamcortney's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

A thoughtful reflection on a disease-driven apocalypse. I have always been interested in the moments and days right when the end comes, rather than "we were happy and fine" and then "20 years later". This novel includes a great distribution of events before, during, and after the collapse of civilization. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, and Grief

Minor: Violence, Child abuse, and Suicide

While the apocalypse is caused by a pandemic, there are no graphic details of the illness and death by it. When described it is in more general terms of flu-like symptoms and delirium. I tagged religious bigotry as graphic because there is a violent cult with "we are the light, you are the darkness" type of mentality, "we are saved/chosen because we survived the plague." The cult references the Christian book of Revelations but otherwise there is no explicit uses of Christianity to oppress/kill others, just out of context quotes. The minor child abuse tag is due to mention of child brides, though there is no graphic descriptions of it.

bookswithbethx's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Mental illness, Gun violence, Medical content, Pedophilia, Animal death, Blood, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Murder, Sexism, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Child abuse, and Adult/minor relationship

brindolyn's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Adult/minor relationship, Gun violence, Infidelity, Medical content, and Murder

samanthaleeshea's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful 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? It's complicated

5.0

Just an awesome and beautiful story of survival against all odds... but survival is insufficient right? It's about art and hope and music and love after everything else has ended.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Suicide

Minor: Child abuse and War

foxsglove's review against another edition

emotional reflective relaxing medium-paced

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

4.5

A book that gave me a melancholic feeling with interesting characters that kept me engage. I believe some plot lines could have been fleshed out more (as they felt lacking) but overall this was a pleasant read. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death

Minor: Rape and Child abuse