Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

72 reviews

purplepickle's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I set the book down once to go get lunch. I walked outside and a car drove past me on the street. I nearly burst into tears.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Rape and Sexual assault

chasingpages1's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Infidelity and Medical content

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Mental illness, Rape, Suicide, Blood, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

dstone6298's review against another edition

mysterious reflective sad 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Violence, Blood, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Suicide, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

chelly_reads's review against another edition

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

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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, Gun violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

cort_kaye's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Blood

berodatheelf's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

A rich dystopian novel that focuses on several characters pre and post pandemic that is lyrically written. It was an interesting deep dive into the psyche of humans and humanity itself.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Blood

Minor: Child death, Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Suicide, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

maddie_can_read's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I remember watching the TV show for a few episodes a few years ago so it's interesting seeing what I remember/ what they changed.

I really enjoy the structure of the book, where you follow characters over time and space.

And the fact that you don't necessarily know at the beginning which characters you are going to follow. Like it's so interesting going back in time to a character that we already know is dead and learn more about them, their hopes and dreams, their impact on others and then see their death from a totally different perspective. Very humanizing. Loved the "twist" of knowing who the prophet was and the parallels between his trauma and Kristen's trauma

. Also really enjoy the writing style. I like the feeling of not knowing where the author is taking you.

Loved all the Canadian and especially the Toronto references!

I have a difficult time visualizing some books but thought this book was written in a way that really facilitated visualizing what was happening, being familiar with Toronto also probably helped though.

I also enjoyed the tone of the book, it felt neither overly optimistic or pessimistic in imagining a post-apocalyptic world. 

One minor critique is that some of the side characters were difficult to distinguish between.

Specifically, Kristen's traveling symphony friends

I also kind of wished we had seen the reunion between Kristen and Jevin and if they 'd figure out how they knew each other

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Child death and Death of parent

Minor: Rape and Blood

parfait52's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

It took me several months to get through this book, which is saying something because it's fairly short. Every time I picked it up, I was interested enough. Once I put it down, though, I didn't feel the need to pick it back up. This book doesn't really have a plot so much as it has a story. And once you figure out how the story is forming and the author is doing, it's very easy to know where it's going to go. At times, I found the writing to be beautiful and profound. I found the concept fascinating, but the execution was stifling at points. There were several parts of the book that I personally found very boring and wanted to get past immediately. Overall, not a bad read. There are just books I've enjoyed more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Alcoholism, Child death, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, and Pregnancy

bookboi56's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.5

I really wanted to enjoy this book, having heard good things about it for a long while. But whilst the premise is very interesting, and the opening chapters are very intriguing given their close resemblance to the COVID-19 outbreak, I found the rest of the story a trudge to get through. 

Maybe 20% of the book unfolds with the present characters in mind. The rest constantly flips back and forth between any one of about 12 characters all vaguely related to each other at greater and greater tangents, whilst moving from present to past in short fitful chapters.

As someone who is not great with names, having only a quick description for each person is not sufficient to keep up with a dozen similarly traumatised apocalypse survivors. This may be an effect of listening to the book rather than reading it. But for the last 2 thirds I found myself just going along and trying to enjoy what I was hearing with no context as to who anyone was. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

reggiethebird's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense 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

I very much preferred this to Sea of Tranquility. Those first 30 or so pages are a tough read, and hit a little too close to home (the toilet paper line got me [ I'm very glad I read this after covid]), but the rest is nicer. Jumps around the timeline a ton, but once you know to expect it it works beautifully.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Murder, Gaslighting, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Gun violence

Minor: Rape