Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

18 reviews

_puberty2's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-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? Yes

5.0

This is a beautiful piece of prose, especially for a debut novel. I blew through it in 3 days and was genuinely glued to the story. I just want to hug Wallace and be a friend to him that will treat him like an actual person, Brigit was the only real one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Homophobia, Racism, Sexual content, Physical abuse, and Hate crime

Moderate: Eating disorder and Body shaming

lillyll's review

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

It's really hard to make up my mind about this book, but no matter what I can definitely reccomend reading it.
Real life is a lot of things, it shows the intricacies and nuances of a friendgroup the underlying rivalries and fights.
It shows the casual cruelty that originates from the insecurity of not knowing your place or who you are.
Especially in that  suspended period of studying that us not quite real life, where evrything is something between a game and the grand scheme of things and no one knows how hits supposed to go.
The not knowing where it all leads, wanting to start fresh and maybe live your life better, now that you know and the impossibility and inescapability of that.

Real life shows how past trauma can transfer into the present and how it affects relationships with others. And especially for the maincharacter Wallace this is a relationship threaded with violence and kindness and it's very heartbreaking.

And this is before we start  talking about Wallace himself, he's kind of caught up in his past and present, not really belonging to his friends and alienating himself. The casual racism he experiences in his lab, from hid friends. 
You'll feel frustrated, angry, desperate and heartbroken but at the same time seen. That is if you're in that same period of studying and total insecurity.
And my only issue is that it was a little heavy on the lab and biology descriptions and the tennis technique.
But besides that this was an incredible read with absolute beautiful writing

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Racism, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, and Homophobia

Moderate: Body shaming and Death of parent

mourtarymaggots's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad fast-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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Blood, Body shaming, Adult/minor relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual assault

mabelb's review against another edition

reflective sad tense 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Sexual content

Moderate: Death of parent and Homophobia

Minor: Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Fatphobia, and Body shaming

kers_tin's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Violence, Grief, Sexual content, Homophobia, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Classism, Death of parent, Infidelity, and Body shaming

Minor: Misogyny and Suicidal thoughts

nkeshyy's review against another edition

emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Honestly, this book has been torturous to read. There's so much level of masochism and self-harming in the way that Wallace stays in situations that require him to leave (which is to say, vvhite spaces). But at the same time, how do you leave something when you've convinced yourself that it's all you have to offer and receive? I keep saying Yho! And crying. I cry for this boy y'all 🤣. It's just a very sad book. It's a very confrontational and fucked up story. Brandon Taylor had no right. It's too raw. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Racism, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Vomit, Eating disorder, and Sexual assault

ktkate's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Vomit, Sexual content, and Rape

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Eating disorder, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Homophobia, and Misogyny

nialiversuch's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Classism, Cursing, Addiction, Alcoholism, Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Body shaming, Death of parent, Homophobia, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Vomit, Alcohol, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Racism, and Rape

rinku's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

 I still struggle with writing reviews for books I love, and it’s the same with Real Life. Something about this book resonated deeply with me and while I often find contemporary literature kinda boring, I was here eager to read every page of this book. 

Real Life only takes place at one weekend but shows how significant such a short period can have in one’s life. The greatest strength of this book is that everything just feels so real: the university setting, the characters, their constellations, and emotions. 

The university environment was so interesting to see, and I liked the focus on biochemistry – one of those research fields that always intrigued me. The dynamic of this place was interesting to see as well and shocking/sad when looking at the unfair way Wallace was treated. He is everyone’s punching bag there and has to suffer all those microaggressions.  

Coming to the characters, they were described so vividly that they also felt like real people, especially Wallace’s friends. Everyone had their own struggles and the relationships they had to each other felt realistic as well. 

Wallace as the main character is obviously the best written character of this novel. He as well felt like a real person with his own interests and an amazing depiction of this emotions. His life is so depressing, and it truly feels that he has no one in this world. I probably couldn’t have read this book at a better point in time, because many things Wallace was reflecting on – his job and if he’s even enjoying it, what it means to have friends and what it means when you try to please everybody – were things I was thinking about as well. 

Of course, this book dominantly reflects on other aspects, like what it means to be queer or how it feels to be black when everyone around you is white. Again, it’s so well described that you can feel every little emotion Wallace feels as well. My only critique are probably the long chapters that seem to be common in contemporary books, but I never like them. Nevertheless, Real Life is an amazing character study. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Rape, and Sexual content

Moderate: Death of parent, Vomit, Body shaming, and Alcohol

seawarrior's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

Real Life is a heavy, honest coming of age story that focuses on graduate student Wallace, as he realizes the depths of his discontent over the course of a weekend. Wallace is the only Black graduate student in his program, an alienating experience which is made worse by acts of sabotage, statements of thinly veiled racism, and silence from his white peers. Taylor pulls no punches while describing how Wallace feels, and unravels why he is compelled to either placate or push away those he calls his friends as the story goes on. This book contains effective but visceral descriptions of trauma and how it pecks its way into people and slumbers within them, poisoning them quietly for a spell before squawking loudly for attention. If you are triggered by descriptions of sexual assault, especially against minors, this is not a book I would ever recommend to you. Yet I never felt like Taylor exploited Wallace's history of surviving assault to elicit shock or pity from the reader. Instead we are led to understand, similarly to Wallace, that his history cannot be escaped, and that his flee to academia has piled on new violations hidden under politeness and guilty apologies while exacerbating his poor self-esteem. Taylor makes it impossible not to empathize with Wallace, and I desperately wished for him to find safety and happiness somewhere in his world. The ending of the book was disappointing to me because Wallace's life did not improve, but I don't regret having read it. Taylor's prose is striking and glittering with insight, so I would still highly recommend this book to those who can stomach the subject matter.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Racism, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Alcohol, Homophobia, Animal death, Classism, and Death of parent