Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

8 reviews

michaelion's review

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Very respectful of people with different minds. Very kind. Very well reseaeched into the intersections of people's lives and how their mental illnesses or impairities can / may be affected by outside factors. Very very, very real, living, loving book. 🥰 

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lottiegasp's review

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I found it boring and too slow-paced after the first few chapters. I did not find myself caring enough for the characters or the outcome to continue 

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bookish_history's review

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challenging emotional inspiring 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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alicelalicon's review against another edition

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emotional reflective 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

3.75


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willows's review

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challenging dark reflective tense 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? No

3.75

 That was absolutely bonkers and had very memorable characters. Literally wack, it's been weeks and I still think about it. 

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librarianlayla's review

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dark emotional 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

4.0

If you're looking for a book that has a lot of emotional range, but not overly littered with joy or hope - then this is for you.

Whilst beautifully written, raw and real - there wasn't a lot of light within this book. It holds a lot of pain, confusion and loss.

This book is designed to make you feel and to think on a broader spectrum. Less about enjoyment and more about emotional expansion within the realm of sorrow.

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spcandybars's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective medium-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? Yes

5.0

I have to say that I absolutely love, no, completely adore this book. So much feels so relatable - the depiction of the mother’s ADHD, the presence of the Marie Kondo + Japanese minimalism tidying boom, the odd complications of aging into adulthood within a rapidly changing society - but then there are the the moments that aren’t relatable, that don’t make you feel nostalgic about your life. There’s pain and struggles with mental health that may seem far away but are so close anyway.  I heavily appreciated the tie between Benny’s auditory hallucinations, the likely ghost of the Kenji, and the incorporation of the Japanese/Shinto beliefs surrounding the spirit of all things. I also love “the book” and how it encompasses many a book lover’s inner ramblings about their favorite item while also representing something much more abstract. I could dig into so many pieces of this book but in this moment I’m just so happy to have added it to a never ending collection of stories (which I think would make the book happy as well). 

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thebacklistborrower's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

 I finished this book and wasn’t ready to let it go. I immediately wanted to reread it again, forwards, backwards, and from right in the middle. It is about a boy named Benny who hears objects talking to him, including a book that narrates his life, and his mother, a woman who struggles with hoarding. Ultimately, this story is about our relationship with stuff and books in particular. 

This book covers so much ground: mental health, trauma, access to appropriate supports for children and adults, consumerism, capitalism, art, the nature of reality, society’s treatment of homeless people with mental health challenges, and books. Over and over again, language, stories, poetry, books, and libraries are looked to for solace, connection, and help. Many characters take refuge in the library and get help from the community that it builds around it. 

In this book, all things have spirits and voices and want to be heard. Benny goes in and out of live-in treatment when he starts to hear these voices, and an alphabet of diagnoses is sprinkled through the book as his doctors try to figure him out. But at the same time, as a reader I never felt that his hearing voices was wrong, with the book coming across as magical realism. Anybody who has read Ozeki’s “Tale for the Time Being” will know this style. In both books, the question of “what is real” is very present both for the characters and the reader. And ultimately, it is up to everybody’s interpretation what the answer is. I was fascinated to see in the Acknowledgements that Ozeki had consulted with various groups that support those who hear voices, which definitely leant itself to the way the topic is approached in the book.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. There is still so much I haven’t talked about, and I think everybody who reads this book will read something different and valuable out of it (a phenomenon actually referenced in the book). So I think anybody can and should read this book. It will be one of my favourites this year, and for many to come.

 

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