Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

39 reviews

woweewhoa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Battle Royale is a very effective character drama and fun to read action-thiller! There's a lot of effective POV scenes which really get you into the heads of the characters, and even with some of the more antagonistic characters, you really get to feel for them or at least understand where they're coming from. 
The action scenes are good, and the booking is Really really good. You can tell that Koushun Takami is a wrestling fan aha. 
While it's a big book, it moves Fast, the scenes just flying by and the end of chapters giving you Just enough to want to keep reading and reading to see what happens next. 

My main problems with the book are the kinda over the top and vague details of the political system. I definitely believe its a fascistic system, but when it tries to make it a communist system as well, it kinda fails because the state seems to have absolutely nothing to do with communism or it's theories? And then to pit it at odds with imperialist America is odd? I know there's a deep and complicated history in japan, considering their role in WW2 and the rise of nationalism that preceded that, and then in turn you have what happened afterwards and the ways America did change ways Japan did things for the negative in the fallout after bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki... History and the way it effects culture is complicated, and to be fair, I don't really have the knowledge of it as a whole, but I do know many Japanese creators work through these ideas and that it's something that many of them keep in mind so... IDK
There Is something interesting being done here re: that, but also I don't feel like it's really well fleshed out or anything. It works as a backdrop to the character drama and and conceit that makes the story move, but on its own it kinda fails. 

But that's honestly a relatively small criticism in the face of the rest of the book, which is a really exciting book about teens being teens and how they experience and process trauma, but Also about them killing each other because a good amount of them don't trust each other and want to survive. 

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mysteryspouse's review against another edition

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

5.0


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vvabecca's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0


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red_bryce's review against another edition

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

4.25


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joshuahc's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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clovetra's review against another edition

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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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excritos's review against another edition

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

0.75


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ajourneythroughpages's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.75

I love this book! So good. Read it about 4 times now and it was still just as good as I remembered. Not rated 5 stars because of some sexism and homophobia. 

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kait_sixcrowsbooks's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

Perhaps the worst book I read this year. Dear lord.

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rooibosproletariat's review against another edition

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

4.0


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