Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

9 reviews

alicelalicon's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Grief, and Self harm

Moderate: Child abuse, Fatphobia, Bullying, Drug use, Alcohol, Medical content, Racism, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Body shaming, Sexual content, Ableism, and Cursing

Minor: Toxic relationship, Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Suicidal thoughts

willows's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death of parent, and Mental illness

Moderate: Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Grief, Pregnancy, Self harm, and Violence

Minor: Rape, Racial slurs, Police brutality, and Racism

librarianlayla's review

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Abandonment, Addiction, Car accident, Drug use, Dysphoria, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Alcoholism, Blood, Body shaming, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Death, Animal death, Cursing, Grief, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, and Hate crime

stwriter92's review

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

“A book must start somewhere. One brave letter must volunteer to go first, laying itself on the line in an act of faith, from which a word takes heart and follows, drawing a sentence into its wake. From there, a paragraph amasses, and soon a page, and the book is on its way, finding a voice, calling itself into being.”

Thus starts The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. Set against the backdrop of the turmoil of the 2020 presidential election and the BLM movement, the novel centers on the lives of twelve year old Benny Oh, who has just lost his musician father in a terrible accident. His life and the life of his mother, Annabel, immediately begin to unravel as each finds a way to deal with the trauma of loss. Annabel begins to hoard items, longing for connection and desperate to surround herself by things and items that will never leave her. Benny, on the other hand, begins to hear the voices of the objects around him and, after listening to a particularly violent pair of scissors, ends up admitted to a psychiatric ward where he meets all manner of people. Among them is the beautiful, artistic, self-named Aleph with whom Benny falls in love with almost immediately. She is an experimental artist who, while she is not in the ward, roams the streets of the unnamed, vaguely American city with a homeless philosopher and poet, Slavoj. In them, Benny finds a sense of belonging that he does not find anywhere else. He finds an ultimate sense of refuge in the Library, where he meets a book that narrates his life to him in a way that is so compassionate and honest that it's nearly painful. 

After reading A Tale For The Time Being in 2020, I knew that I needed to pick up more books by Ruth Ozeki. This book deals with major themes of death, grief, the transience of existence, and the universal longing to connect in a world that is both completely connected and disconnected at the same time. It urges us as the reader to approach it with a sense of compassion for its broken, beautiful, lonely characters. It holds a mirror up for us, asking us to truly look into what makes us human and real. As we grasp for connection, we find ourselves slowly distancing from one another like orphan planets drifting apart. There were many times I had to put this book down for a few days just to calm and gather my thoughts. This was an uncomfortable read, but an incredibly beautiful one. I would highly recommend anyone and everyone to read this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Grief, Drug use, Mental illness, and Medical content

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicide, Blood, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual content

Minor: Animal death, Police brutality, Pregnancy, and Vomit

emmagreenwood's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Cursing, Sexual assault, Grief, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Body shaming, Fatphobia, Death of parent, Racism, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Police brutality, Addiction, Blood, Bullying, Car accident, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, and Drug use

aemulatio's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Death of parent

Moderate: Sexual content and Self harm

Minor: Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Violence, Addiction, Bullying, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Sexual violence, and Animal death

storykath's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? Yes

3.75

Whew, finally made it! I read this book in fits and starts over the last two weeks, and a lot of the time it felt unending, but in the end it was a worthwhile story that will probably stay on my mind for a while.

This book tackles a lot; there's commentary on mental health, addiction, the nature of stories, politics, and society as a whole. It was an effort to continually wade through them all, but the switches in POVs were effective for keeping things balanced.

There's also a lot of nuance and ambiguity in this book, and I think it was handled incredibly well. We hear the subjective thoughts and feelings of characters with mental illnesses and addictions, and we can see how easy it is for them to fall into deluded or dangerous ways of thinking. At times I was totally immersed in each character's perspective, and at other times I could approach it more objectively and see the truths that they were missing. To handle this type of writing so sensitively and faithfully is really a feat.

I don't think I would read this book again, as a lot of the philosophy was too nebulous for my tastes, but I would recommend it to anyone looking for an absurd yet bracingly real story of struggle and survival.

Definitely check content warnings before diving in.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Alcohol, Death of parent, Mental illness, Self harm, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Drug abuse, Blood, Car accident, Death, Drug use, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Medical content, and Bullying

Minor: Sexual assault, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Homophobia, and Violence

_inge's review

slow-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

4.0

This was really good, though I can’t exactly explain why. I think Ozeki’s writing has a lot to do with this. Her writing really is amazing; her sentences are poetic and beautiful, but still very clear and easy to follow. The structure helped as well, the chapter length made it easier to digest what was happening in the story. The subject matter is quite heavy, but because of the overall style it never manages to be so dark you’d want to put this book away. 

I also really loved the characters in this. They are very flawed, but therefore very human. Like them we don’t know whether they’re doing the right thing or not, and we question what’s real and what isn’t in this story. Often I’d totally understand where both Benny and his mum came from and it hurt to see them argue. 

The book itself as a narrator worked so well too. I’d read stories where the book itself addresses you before (‘Wij Zijn Licht’) but I really liked the dialogue between Benny and the Book. Benny sometimes didn’t agree with what the Book was saying about his life, and these moments were some of the greatest in this novel for me. The book itself made me think too; I too prefer ‘happy’ books on my shelf, for instance, and often rate those more highly, even if their message isn’t as profound. 

At times I did think the plot dragged a bit, but that was mostly because I wanted to see what would happen next. Sometimes characters went away for a bit, and I felt annoyed they didn’t do anything to work on their issues instead - but maybe making the reader feel annoyed at this was the point? I also didn’t really like the connection between the Zen cleaning aspects (and Marie Kondo references?) and how this tied into the story in the final part of this book. I don’t quite know what these cleaning methods actually did for Annabelle and whether this even helped her clean at all. But perhaps it’s more about the ideas behind this cleaning method and what the Zen book represented for her. 

I hesitated picking this up because of the overall length, but I felt drawn to it and decided to give it a go. And I’m really glad I did. I still don’t know why I wanted to keep on reading as soon as I picked this up, and I can’t really form a clear opinion about this book as a whole. This’ll be a book I’ll think about for a long time to come.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Blood, Addiction, Abandonment, Ableism, Death of parent, Mental illness, Death, Car accident, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Self harm, Drug abuse, and Violence

prettycloud's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense 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

4.5

She had me with the intriguing premise, but this book delivers a nuanced look at mental illness, a thoughtful exploration of grief (both individual and the climate change/post-Trump Weltschmerz), and a celebration of love in all its forms. If I could distill this book into a single idea, it would be the forces that divide us and the ways we can connect in spite of them. This book has a lot of pain and disconnection in it, but it gave me hope that we can all somehow make it out of *gestures vaguely* all of this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Body shaming, Violence, Blood, Grief, Bullying, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Self harm, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Mental illness, Cursing, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Sexual content, Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Drug use, Police brutality, Racism, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and Sexual violence

Minor: Ableism, Mass/school shootings, Pregnancy, Classism, Gun violence, Antisemitism, and Suicide attempt

This book has a lot of heavy content but it does not stay in its dark parts long and its overall tone is hopeful. It never lingers on lurid details, and the narrators tend to talk around what's happening/has happened. Both the mother and son are traumatized and both have traumatic interactions with institutions of the state, and she

was sexually assaulted by her stepfather

.

The police violence includes violence at a protest and one of the periods of institutionalization. The institutionalization includes the threat of separation of mother and son.