Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

Confessions by Kanae Minato

19 reviews

clovetra's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

holy shit. i don’t think ive enjoyed a book like that in a while, where im so engrossed i literally put life on hold to read it. sure, i love all my 5-star rankings, but so far only twilight was able to capture my immersion… which is embarrassing to admit at my grown age. except, now this novel falls into that category. 

this was fucking amazing.

so many plot twists. so many scathing passages. 

i felt every emotion. anger. sadness. confusion happiness. concern. joy.

even though there are only six chapters, each leaves you with a bit more information. and with every new piece of information is a new plot twist. 

from the first chapter alone i was hooked. i was thoroughly confused at first, but as i kept going, i became more and more invested, until the first of many bombshells is dropped in chapter one. from there, minato keeps rolling the punches, as she adds more depth to an already exhilarating story. 

can i also just say i love me a good fucked up story. and not just fucked up for the sake of being fucked up. you can really tell minato knows when to lull the reader into a comfortable state and rip the rug out underneath from them. and i promise you the more you keep going the twists keep getting more and more outlandish - but in a good way.

i’ve heard people say that this book is grating at times because each chapter follows a similar retelling of events but from another characters point of view - from a killer, to the teacher who has lost her child, to a mother of a killer, to a student. i found this to be enthralling! seeing underneath the surface of every character’s motivation, inner thoughts, and explanations to why they acted like x a chapter ago, or why they said y 50 pages ago. it was delectable

i don’t think i can honestly put into words how addicting this book is. if this were a book with a massive fandom (i don’t know if it has one sue me) i could smell myself forming a hyper-fixation on this story because my god was it beautiful.

literally my ass only has One gripe…. and that’s

the HIV plot threw me off track a bit, as i know HIV very likely won’t be transmitted through drinking blood of someone with HIV, or even sharing a meal or using a bathroom with someone HIV+. like that part threw me off so much when characters kept talking about “oh no i have HIV”…. like i damn well know u dont

. but even then honestly i don’t care enough to let that ruin my perception. this book was too yummy to be hung up on such a “small” detail, when everything else was done to perfection.

i swear if u like thrillers & haven’t read this bump it up ur tbr

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Bullying, Murder, Medical content, and Death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Child abuse, Abandonment, and Physical abuse

Minor: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Pregnancy, and Miscarriage

eabh's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I knew from reading the back of this book’s that it’s genre and plot was not my cup of tea. However, it was a pick for a book club read. And for the first half of the book, I was intrigued and mildly engaged. But when shit hit the fan in the second half, I was left feeling disturbed, frustrated, and disappointed.

This book was much more distressing than I anticipated. Through the shifting perspectives of Confessions, you learn more about the experiences that happen that shape the character’s beliefs and decision making. I found there to be so much senseless violence and cognitive over analysis that I was both unsettled and uninvested in this book. 

Besides that, this novel felt very far fetched and unlikely to happen IRL, so it was challenging for me to suspend reality and stay invested through this book. 

A few things I did enjoy: the multiple narrator style was well written and the dynamics between the characters was interesting to see unravel in the story. 

Overall, this book was slow, repetitive, and twisted to me. 2 stars feels generous. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Child death, Death, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Emotional abuse, Bullying, and Blood

Moderate: Miscarriage and Toxic relationship

Minor: Miscarriage

brandyrae's review against another edition

• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This was excellent. 
The story is told from five perspectives so it does get a bit repetitive but as they were from different POVs, I didn't find it terrible.
It felt a bit Stephen King (without the minutely detailed descriptions) with a twist of Gillian Flynn, which is to say chilling in the best way. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Terminal illness, Mental illness, Bullying, Blood, Child abuse, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, and Abandonment

Minor: Miscarriage, Toxic friendship, and Animal cruelty

dosxhime's review

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

These kids may be unhinged, but Moriguchi is feral for revenge 

4/5 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Gaslighting, Murder, Child death, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Terminal illness, Mental illness, Abandonment, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Miscarriage

anu_10's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, and Child death

Moderate: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Self harm, and Mental illness

Minor: Miscarriage, Animal death, and Car accident

samj_'s review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Murder, Abandonment, and Suicide

Moderate: Pregnancy

Minor: Miscarriage

noemi_qu's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

The end of the first chapter made me stop and say "holy fuck" out loud. Once it started, there was no brakes on the wild ride of a story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Murder, Child death, Emotional abuse, and Grief

Moderate: Gaslighting, Terminal illness, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Child abuse

Minor: Pregnancy and Miscarriage

sydoodle's review

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

3.0

What the fuck! Lmao!

This was fine. Cool concept. Kind of lost interest and felt not much after, but still liked reading. I am so scared of children.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Car accident, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Murder, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicide, Transphobia, and Terminal illness

emmajoyreading's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, and Mental illness

Moderate: Suicide, Terminal illness, Suicide attempt, Violence, Abandonment, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Death of parent, and Forced institutionalization

james1star's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This was so good! Like wow I’m totally impressed by this book and would wholeheartedly recommend it. I can’t say much about the plot without spoilers but basically two of Yuko’s students killed her daughter in a suspected ‘accident’ and this is the story of her revenge… and the aftermath of it. Minato splits the book up into chapters from different people’s perspectives and various formats too which I absolutely loved, it’s so engaging and hard to put it down. The prose is somewhat basic and brutally honest but the actual story is rather convoluted and very complex. Things are unveiled throughout with some shocking parts that place it in the thriller genre (one I’m not very acquainted with) but there’s many a passage on life, relationships and emotions pushing it into the literary genre too. The characters aren’t likeable but do have a lot of complexity to them which is great and in many ways I didn’t want it to end to get other perspectives too… very bingeable despite the horrific nature of the contents in parts. I was totally enthralled and gripped by Confessions and cannot wait to read more by Minato, and watch the movie adaptation too. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Child death, Grief, Bullying, Blood, and Terminal illness

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Transphobia, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Suicide, Child abuse, Animal death, Death of parent, Mental illness, and Domestic abuse