Reviews - The Book of Form and Emptiness

3.77k reviews for:

The Book of Form and Emptiness

Ruth Ozeki

4.05 AVERAGE

donnydonny's review against another edition

5.0

emotional inspiring reflective 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

arnazkh's review against another edition

4.25

reflective sad medium-paced

oceanic_rabbit's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

themoonmins's review against another edition

2.0

3 is generous
bored and underwhelmed. a little too on the nose, a little lost in itself. saw what ozeki was trying to do and all i can say is...an attempt was made. i will respect it as i respect all books i don't love
but i wouldn't recommend it, and i don't think i'll be rereading

on rethinking this has been dropped to 2 because I take issue with the two following things
1. the weird subliminal ‘schizoaffective disorder can be quelled with taking responsibility of one’s own life’ message and
2. trying to normalise the feelings and thoughts of a 14 year old protagonist by linking him to Freud and Gandhi?

mayaba's review against another edition

4.0

dark funny lighthearted reflective 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

tastor's review against another edition

4.0

Really great book about books and other objects and how they fit into our lives. Kind of has a magic realism thing going where it uses the Zen concept of all things having voices and then runs with it, allowing the main character to hear the voices (which, because they come from everything end up severely messing with his life) and eventually hears the "voice" of his own book, the very one we are reading that is about him. This leads to all sorts of meta-territory, including the idea of stories that seem like they are going to go in these obvious satisfying narratives which instead take different "realistic" turns. I did think some of it dragged a bit and we could have gotten some more exploration of certain aspects but all in all it builds to a satisfying (if a little sad) conclusion.