Reviews tagging 'War'

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

6 reviews

noodlebooknook's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Wow where do I even start

Well first of all given the size of the book (650 pages of my edition) I was a little intimidated but this book FLIES by so fast it feels like a 200-300 page book.

The narration style was so unique starting with 42 characters and we get POVs with a lot of them. Which has its normal downsides where sometimes I would be less invested than normal but overall most of the POVs were so interesting.

Also I really had no idea where this book was going at all somehow have managed to avoid spoilers for 25 year and wow wow wow the ending was just amazing.

I will say absolutely trigger warning this was one of the most gore heavy and violent books I’ve read in awhile and it is absolutely an insane read along with other terrible things happening. 

Overall would highly recommend this book to anyone

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Murder, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Confinement, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Rape, Violence, and War

velveteenrabbit's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gore, Child death, War, Vomit, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Cursing, Blood, and Medical content

Moderate: Rape, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, and Adult/minor relationship

clovetra's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Gun violence, Body horror, Gore, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Mass/school shootings

Minor: Rape, War, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Homophobia, Vomit, and Suicide

lexthe_siren's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful fast-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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Body horror, War, and Violence

duyanh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Suicide, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Violence, War, Vomit, Gun violence, Grief, Kidnapping, Blood, Child death, Police brutality, Gore, Murder, and Misogyny

itshardizzy's review

dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

It was so fast paced. The author didn't held back on the killings and I'm lowkey thankful for that because the whole story IS about teenagers killing each other. There was some characters that i felt a bit more connected with but them they were killed :(((. There is multiple POVs but the one more constant is Shuya, who i found just annoying and really naive.

the most in-depth characters was Shogo, Shining and Mitsuko in my personal opinion. They all have the most interesting stories specially Mitsuko. Mitsuko is made to be a bad girl but when we take a look at what she had been through is impossible to not feel sorry for her. I believe the author deeply criticized Japanese persons that go after minor girls or that sexualize minor girls. Shinji was actually the one that everyone thought was going to win and he really could have won if it weren't for his deeply dependence for his uncle. He really lived at his uncle shadow and I believe that is why he didn't succeed

. The author did a really good job at critizing governments that send their youth to war

in his version of Japan, the youths don't need to go to war BUT in return one school and one specific class will be chosen (at random) to be a part of a experiment that will help the government to understand how people react to certain events and weapons, which is basically a war itself but a minor one.

. I really had my hopes up about the ending but unfortunately it wasn't what i wanted. Still I liked the book and the criticism that the author pointed out in a very interesting way. Definitely worth to read again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Suicide, War, and Xenophobia

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Drug use, Homophobia, Pedophilia, and Rape