Reviews with content warning for Self harm - We Were Restless Things

Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

We Were Restless Things by Cole Nagamatsu

3 reviews

booksthatburn's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-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

WE WERE RESTLESS THINGS is about the strangeness of grief, of continuing after someone else has stopped, and the impossibility of keeping someone happily where they don’t want to be.

Link died before the book opens, drowning in the woods, dying in a camera-shy lake that’s only sometimes there. His sister and friends slowly move into new configurations in his absence, jostled by the void he left behind. Complicating thing is the new kid, Jonas, who didn’t ask to fill Link’s seat but nevertheless must answer the implicit question of replacement.

By switching perspectives throughout, no one character takes over the narrative, and every one of them is described at least once through someone else’s understanding of them. One of the characters is working through her wants and needs as far as a romantic and/or sexual relationship, including whether she wants either, neither, or both of those things. It’s refreshing in a way that simply declaring a label at her introduction wouldn’t be. She has important conversations with other characters where they discuss the particulars of what any of this means for her, what their own desires mean for them, and it feels like it would help a reader maybe untangle some of their own thoughts on love and sex, including when and whether they’re separate. By the time more precise terms are used they get to be a succinct way to label what her words and actions have already made abundantly clear.

By the end I think Gaetan became my favorite character. Early on he’s shown from the perspective of characters who don’t understand him. When so much of the early book is through Jonas who just met him it means that the reader takes a long time to learn anything about Gaetan other than his bleeding edges which are sharp enough to cut. Jonas is sweet but aimless, bumbling into existing dynamics without pausing to assess the space before entering it. He tends to notice that his presence changed things, but often takes a long time to ask what was there before. By the time he does, the others have moved on to react to the new status quo.

I love the ending. It leaves the characters in a place that’s better than where they started, but without trying to fix everything that is wrong.

Content Warnings

anniereads221's review

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

noellelovesbooks's review

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emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

This review was first posted on my blog...

Content Warning:
-Drowning
-Mention of childhood abuse
-Bullying
-Loss
-Self-harm mentioned
-Suicidal thoughts mentioned

Last summer I saw this book, and its beautiful cover, online and decided to pick it up. The summary seemed somewhat mysterious and magical which always catches my interest. Sadly, like many books I buy, it sat unread on my shelf for months. Over the last few months, I’ve drastically reduced the number of books I buy so that I’m reading more books that I already own.

A few days ago I was scrolling through book Twitter and saw a post by the author, Cole Nagamatsu, where they stated they were harassed for the Ace rep in this book because they weren’t publically out as Ace. This bully forced them to come out before they were ready. I can’t imagine how hurt they were having someone accuse them of adding Ace rep as a money grab when it’s still something, of themselves, they’re still coming to terms with. After seeing that tweet I decided to bump this book up in my TBR pile…and I’m so glad that I did.

This book bounces between a few different narratives, as well as some dream journal entries, which gives it a very “peek into the life” of all the characters involved. We get to see how Link’s death has affected each character including Jonas Lake who only just got to town. This book is full of honesty, self-doubt, concern, love, and understanding. We get to see all these different people for who they are as well as who they feel they are. I honestly love stories that are like this, ones where it feels like we’re just peeking into a life.

I found the way in which one of the characters opens up about being Ace, and what that means for them, to be so beautiful. It can be so scary to open up about something so deeply personal and I found the way Cole wrote it to be so honest and pure. Sexuality is a spectrum that varies from person to person.

Until I read my first Ace character and saw more videos on Tiktok about being Ace, I didn’t realize there was a difference between aesthetic/physical/emotional/sexual attraction. Growing up I’ve always found a lot of people aesthetically attractive like walking pieces of art but that’s literally all I saw them as…walking art not people I wanted emotional/physical/sexual intimacy with. I’ve always loved hugging, cuddling, and just touching but for me, it isn’t sexual it just brings me emotional comfort but I’ve avoided it a lot due to fear that others would misinterpret it as sexual. The more introspection I’ve done, over the last year, I’ve realized so much about myself and where I fit within the spectrum. I’m so happy to see more Ace rep out there in the media because for some of us it takes seeing it to start to really understand ourselves.

I just now, about ten minutes ago, finished reading this story and the ending almost had me in tears. Not tears of sadness more like tears of hope in regards to the future, which is unknown. Although this is a YA book, I feel like many people, of all ages, could relate to some of the character’s feelings, either by reminiscing of their own adolescence or even seeing things in themselves they never noticed before.

This book, although very different in content, reminds me of how I felt after finishing “The Hunger” by Alma Katsu. Neither are fast-paced books, but both had me feeling like I was just peeking into a certain point in time and had me wishing I could see and know more. Realistically it wouldn’t make sense to have a sequel, for either book, so I’ll just daydream and imagine what the future holds.

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