Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

22 reviews

serendipity421's review

emotional lighthearted slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death of parent, Infertility, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Toxic relationship

Minor: Rape and Pedophilia

nrogers_1030's review

emotional slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment and Alcohol

Moderate: Chronic illness, Pregnancy, and Cancer

Minor: Fatphobia, Alcoholism, Death, Blood, Pedophilia, Infidelity, Domestic abuse, and Sexual content

_noidea_'s review against another edition

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Transphobia, Pedophilia, and Alcoholism

micamicami's review

emotional reflective 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Death of parent, Alcoholism, and Abandonment

Minor: Bullying, Infertility, Pedophilia, Classism, Child abuse, Suicide attempt, and Rape

edgaranjapoe's review against another edition

reflective 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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Alcohol, and Infertility

Moderate: Cancer, Dysphoria, Pregnancy, Grief, Terminal illness, Addiction, and Alcoholism

Minor: Physical abuse, Child abuse, Abandonment, Blood, Eating disorder, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Rape, Violence, Medical content, Acephobia/Arophobia, Incest, Body shaming, Bullying, Adult/minor relationship, Mental illness, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, and Death

icarusandthesun's review against another edition

man, i am so disappointed. the book started strong and i was able to make it through the whole first book (with a little bit of effort), but the second one was sooo boring i couldn't finish it. interesting, yes - like the whole concept - but slow and tedious and unexciting. i loved mieko kawakami's 'heaven' but breasts and eggs just wasn't it.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Death of parent, Cancer, and Alcoholism

Minor: Medical content, Pregnancy, and Infertility

maceydowns's review

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Alcohol, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Sexism, Classism, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Alcoholism, Vomit, Death, Grief, Medical content, Pedophilia, Cancer, Death of parent, Rape, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Body shaming and Transphobia

itisnatal's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Pedophilia

Moderate: Cancer, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Infertility, and Pregnancy

ye_li's review

challenging emotional mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

3.75

Breasts and Eggs is an insanely surreal book. It explores what it means to be a woman, what can classify a person as a woman, and what it means to live. The characters are convoluted, just complete messes—what a disaster they are, but that's what I found rather charming. Even as they're aging, moving into their twenties and thirties and forties, they still have no idea what the fuck they're doing. Which is almost reassuring, in a way. It took a while for me to read because it has a quirky writing style, and the paragraphs were… long, to say the least. Some themes were rather sudden, too, and I wasn't used to reading about such things, so I had to take breaks here and there. However, I still quite liked it. A very thoughtful piece of work, I can see why it received the praise it did.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Cancer, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Death, and Drug use

becks_books's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

Ultimately, I think this was a really excellent novel, it discusses important topics in a way that's honest and often uncomfortable (there are a lot of content warnings in this book) but it does also have some hope in it.

The book is mainly focused on 2 things: breasts (expectations of women's bodies, especially as they age and have children and how their bodies are perceived, and ultimately how that affects the women and their view of themselves), and eggs (who gets to have children? And the difficulties some people face in having children and accessing services like sperm banks because of their circumstances, specifically in Japan).

Personally, I have absolutely 0 desire to have children and while I've had times where I felt a lot of pressure to look a certain way, I feel like I'm at a place where I can just accept my body for what it is, but reading about people with different circumstances can be really enlightening and I really felt for the women in this story and their circumstances and problems, I think the part about birth and desperately wanting a child was really well done especially, and I just wanted Natsu to find happiness, whatever that looked like for her in the end.

Overall, a really interesting read. Just go in with caution.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Sexism

Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Body shaming and Infidelity

I found the parts where the characters felt hopeless and depressed triggered my own depression a bit, so something to be mindful of. I can't remember if there's any other content warnings, but I think this gives you an idea of the content anyway.