Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura

237 reviews

chapkip's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

WOW. I’m so grateful to have read this book. It’s such a beautiful story with a fun cast of characters and made me cry on multiple occasions. The payoff with each reveal was amazingly executed and I felt like I couldn’t read the last 150-ish pages fast enough. I think this is one of those stories I’ll be thinking about long after putting it down!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Terminal illness, Child abuse, and Child death

Minor: Sexual assault

crows_in_a_trenchcoat's review against another edition

dark hopeful reflective sad slow-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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Sexual assault, Child death, Death, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcoholism

Minor: Death of parent and Fatphobia

atalea's review

hopeful mysterious sad fast-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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Child death, Adult/minor relationship, and Violence

Minor: Death, Cancer, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Alcoholism, and Body shaming

shellbell_04's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness and Bullying

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Sexual assault

Minor: Child death

kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Sad, hopeful, whimsical, lovely. the movie was lovely but this felt like an arrow to the heart in a very bittersweet, throbbing way. I NEED this in print 

I often struggle with translated literature feeling stilted or distanced from the characters but this was spectacular. 

my one bone to pick is that sometimes the children admitted faults in places where truly their parents should have picked up the slack, but I also think that is realistic to their lives. their parents didn’t know them enough to notice their issues, so the kids blame themselves for “not speaking up” when problems arouse. :( 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Bullying, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Grief, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, and Death

brekaboujie's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-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? No

3.0

I feel that reading this book as a trabslation has potentially resulted in me rating it lower than I would have done if I could read it in its original language. It is such a culturally specific book, and the setting is something I know so little about and is so far from my own experience that I found it difficult to empathise with the characters and the plot line. It was all just so BIZARRE but treated very seriously: the intense bullying, the lack of trusted adult figures which meant the bullying was never dealt with, the (to me) extreme reactions to teasing that was so just... stupid and ignorable (feels mean to say, but Kokoro reacted to everything so intensely and extremely it didn't feel realistic to me which then meant a huge section of the plot was a bit muddled in my head), and the mirror and magical land which just... no one questioned despite it being plopped in a world that didn't have any magic elsewhere.

I think a lot of my lack of enjoyment and issues immersing myself came from the translation choices, so I won't comment hugely on the way it was written as it may be totally different in the original version. However, I did fully think for about half the book that the mirror world was an intense hallucination / delusion and that Kokoro was very unwell. It allowed me to ignore some of the weird aspects so then when it wasn't that everything just felt very odd. 

I did enjoy the twists, but I wish there had been better lead up to the ending sequences.

It felt like a big genre twist at the end with the thriller chase sequence vibes, which was fun but again, very odd. Going through everyone's trauma was a bizarre choice as it completely messed up the pacing for me. I also CANNOT TELL YOU how frustrated I was that it took them that long to realise that they were in the same world but from different timelines. It was SO EASY to check and when they went straight to alternate universes I almost ripped my hair out !!!!!!!!!

Overall, I feel like I missed out on a lot by reading an English translation so this is a hesitant 3 stars. The premise was interesting, but it really didn't work for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Death and Child death

Minor: Violence and Child abuse

writteninmagic's review

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Grief, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Body shaming, Blood, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, and Suicide

dananana's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, and Bullying

Moderate: Cancer and Sexual assault

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

ellaisntreading's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

i was not expecting to cry at the end omg

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Child abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, and Child death

Minor: Sexual assault, Cancer, and Suicide attempt

gingervandorsten's review against another edition

hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

 This was lovely. Forgiving and gentle and really touching. I enjoyed it more and more the further I got into it, I think, and the book holds up so well when you see it as a whole story even though I wasn’t particularly into it for the first maybe 2/3rds of the story. But altogether this is a great book and the story is really well-crafted. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Child abuse