Reviews tagging 'Pandemic/Epidemic'

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

9 reviews

friskreads's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Horror type fiction is definitely out of my comfort zone, but this one was well-written and used gore sparingly to advance the narrative. It is chilling in its quiet, slowness and quite different to anything I've read before. I liked the author's end notes explaining his literary 'easter eggs' (although I didn't pick any while reading) and his inspiration which gave the story some more meaning and context to the ending.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Suicide, Violence, and Gun violence

Moderate: Vomit, Hate crime, and Homophobia

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic

sambowen's review

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Hate crime, Pandemic/Epidemic, Homophobia, and Grief

heartachesbi's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Hate crime, Homophobia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Vomit, Torture, and Excrement

jackbifrost's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Homophobia, Violence, Grief, Hate crime, Blood, Suicide, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Vomit, Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Suicidal thoughts

biab00's review

dark emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

3.25

We wil go on 

I really didn't care for the story as a whole, maybe the writing itself didn't keep me interested but the more I think about the ending the better I think about the book. It makes sense imo.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Physical abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, Homophobia, Hate crime, Death, Kidnapping, Violence, and Grief

froggydanny's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Hate crime, Violence, Blood, Child death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Suicide

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Animal cruelty, and Medical content

cassie7e's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

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

3.0

3 stars (Rating might be higher if I was a regular horror/slasher fan)

I very much prefer psychological or gothic thrillers to the pure horror genre, and didn't quite know what I was getting into with this one. On top of that, this book is one massive example of the Trolley Problem, except that it's unclear if the consequences are real. The book does a great job of lending credibility to both possibilities and favoring neither. But gives hs absolutely no reason why the predicament exists in the first place or why the solutions would solve it. Felt very shallow and I didn't really care what happened to the characters besides Wen. The ending was not very satisfying to me and normally I don't mind open endings. Perhaps all this is why I didn't find all the violence and threats compelling. But also pleasant to read a story with normalized queer rep.

I strongly disliked Amy Landon's narration performance. Dialogue sounded stilted and over-voiced, over-serious, over-monotonous. Some of this was her struggling to do male voices, but some of this was a strange tone used for the whole text. This is not a book to listen to on audio for this reason.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gun violence, Child death, Death, Murder, Blood, Gore, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Hate crime

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic and Torture

readerette's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense fast-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? Yes

3.5

For the first half of the book, I was gripped: I wanted to know if the apocalypse was really coming, if the 'invaders' were deluded or not, if Eric and Andrew would believe them, and how the experience would change Wen.

The second half of the book felt to me more like an intellectual exercise/commentary on the mindset of extremists and people in extreme situations than a human story to really place the reader in the room with the characters.

Spoiler

Wen's death is the inflection point. It took away everything that made the story compelling, even though in my opinion, it didn't have to. It perhaps revealed the other characters as one-dimensional even when they hadn't started out that way. The ending landed with a bit of a thunk for me too; it seems the reason that they decide not to die is what Sabrina kept saying, that any god who demanded this kind of sacrifice wasn't worth obeying, even if the sacrifice would save the world. Which... Yeah, I agree in principle. But given all the context shared in the story, could I agree in practice?

I do wonder if part of the intent of the story is to reveal to you, the reader, your tendency to bow to the sort of info that Leonard and the others shared with Wen's family, so that you can reflect on whether you bow too readily or not readily enough.

Spoiler

In my opinion, you get just enough information to not really be sure one way or the other, so that you just have to go with your gut, like the characters do. Whether their gut makes sense is another story.

If you are a parent, particularly of a still-young child, this may not be a book for you unless you have a high tolerance for darkness.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Death, Gore, Murder, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Gun violence, and Cursing

Minor: Vomit and Pandemic/Epidemic

kkalicky94's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Gun violence, Body horror, Child death, Death, Grief, Hate crime, Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Blood, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence