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Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Outing, Abandonment, Colonisation, War
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Outing, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Suicide, Suicide attempt
I struggled with the first two thirds of this book, which felt like a protracted setting up of the world, characters, and backstory. I found the text impenetrable, the pace frenetic, and the storyline uneven. The second-person perspective placed me at a distance from the text, and this was made doubly alienating by what an unpleasant character the protagonist is. This perspective also made it harder for me to engage with the unfamiliar concepts and language used in the book, as I felt like my brain was already exhausted from filtering the meaning through a perspective filter.
This changed when I got to the final third of the book. I'm not sure if it just took me that long to get into the rhythm of it, or if the pacing and action substantially changed, but all of the elements came together for me and propelled me towards the conclusion. Was the last third of the book satisfying enough to make up for how much I struggled with the beginning? On balance? Just.
Other themes/aspects that came up for me when I read it:
- ethics of conflict photojournalism
- war and power
- mortality/the afterlife
- homophobia (both homosexuality and homophobia are portrayed pretty negatively in the book and the author also appears to be straight. For me this makes it a homophobic commentary on homophobia?)
- female characters (they are... Not well written)
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Deportation, Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Violence, Car accident, Murder
Moderate: Homophobia, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicide, Torture
Minor: Addiction
Do not be afraid of demons; it is the living we should fear. Human horrors trump anything that Hollywood or the afterlife can conjure. Always remember this when you encounter a wild animal or a stray spirit. They are not as dangerous as you
4.5⭐/5
There are books that make you dream about happy things and makes you feel excited about everything great in the world, and then there are books that keep you up at night, making you question how so much injustice can happen in a place, without anyone doing anything about it. This book definitely falls into the latter category.
I've known about the Civil War in Sri Lanka growing up, but weirdly enough, until reading this book, I couldn't grasp the amount of struggle, the people might have gone through in those periods. Especially the parts where, Maali interact with the ghosts of people killed during those times, it deeply affected me.
Even though Maali was trying to figure out what happened to him the entire book, I actually didn't care about that mystery as much as I loved the random stories in between, conversations with ghosts from various times, even though at times it was hard to follow the narration, with the author's choice of second person narration. I didn't think I would get used to it, but I did eventually and honestly it was a good choice.
Graphic: Genocide, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Car accident, War
Graphic: Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Violence, Police brutality, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Car accident, Murder, Alcohol
Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, War
Moderate: Drug use, Torture, Car accident
Minor: Alcoholism
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Infidelity, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child death, Homophobia, Sexual content, Blood, Grief, Colonisation, Classism
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Biphobia, Genocide, Blood, Lesbophobia
Graphic: Homophobia, Violence, War
Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicide, Torture, Kidnapping, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder
Minor: Cancer, Sexual content, Alcohol
Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Homophobia, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Drug use, Blood, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Alcohol
Minor: Animal death, Colonisation