Sea of Tranquility - Gatti Ninja

Martin Rundkvist reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Low-key time-travel scifi

4 stars

Content warning Discussing core plot point

I'm OK with the time travel paradoxes -- those are inevitable. But to me it's a pretty bad plot weakness here that the Time Institute notices, and manages to find documentation of, a glitch in the matrix that just looks to three observers like a migraine symptom or a petit mal epileptic fit. People's brains and senses make up all sorts of weird shit all the time, and nobody takes it as evidence of anything particularly significant.

Ajbarbieri@bookwyrm.social reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Quick to read and gripping

5 stars

Was easy to read - that's what I needed at this time, and enjoyed the characters and plot. A great author.

mouse reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Lovely

5 stars

I found this touching and hopeful, I liked how poignantly the characters were drawn, and the themes of kindness and the vicissitudes of life.

My main complaint was that I think the simulation theory stuff was basically an unnecessary macguffin and didn't add to the themes (at least as far as they interested me).

David H reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

A hopeful pandemic novel

4 stars

I liked the story of isolated humans trying to find meaning in their lives, all tangled together and touched by the miraculous. It left me feeling hopeful and reassured.

Erica Molesworth reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

meh

2 stars

a little overrated

Rainer reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Rich in wonder and relatability

5 stars

Content warning Contains slight spoilers after 1st paragraph

Emily St. John Mandel is such an incredibly talented author and this book is richly written. The characters are intriguing and the plot will kind of blow your mind, put it back together, and then blow it again.

When Emily St. John Mandel wrote her first book about pandemics (Station Eleven), very few of us had ever lived through one. Now, we all have the experience of COVID lockdowns, being confined to career/education-by-Zoom, not seeing another human in person for weeks on end, not hugging family members for months on end...this book is highly informed by those experiences, and this author is the exact write person to write us through that shared experience (even if this pandemic is set a few hundred years in the future).

I am an Emily St. John Mandel fanboi for life.

Koven Smith reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Fun, lightweight

3 stars

A breezy, fun(ish, given some of the subject matter) read. The resolution of the book hinges, somewhat, on a twist that is revealed near the end, and I must confess that I was finding the book far more satisfying up to the point that the twist was revealed. It just felt a bit too “plotty” to me in a book that otherwise revels in nice details.

bbbhltz reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Absolutely Meta

5 stars

Fantastic to a point I did not expect. Very meta, and covers aspects that took me by surprise. I rarely read the descriptions of books written by authors that I have read before, and here it totally paid off. If you have read the previous two works by this author, you will like where this book takes you.

Alex

rated it

Oct. 4, 2022

Jonathan Zacsh

rated it

June 16, 2023