Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

O Livro da Forma e do Vazio by Ruth Ozeki

39 reviews

_inge's review against another edition

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

feebles640's review against another edition

emotional 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Death of parent, Body horror, Self harm, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, and Blood

Minor: Child abuse, Addiction, and Alcoholism

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.

greenwillow77's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Grief, Death of parent, Mental illness, Self harm, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Animal death, Violence, and Drug abuse

odyssia's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Car accident, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Police brutality, and Self harm

Minor: Mass/school shootings and Physical abuse

carabones's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Self harm

Moderate: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Fatphobia, Animal death, and Injury/Injury detail

gabb_reads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Grief

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Bullying, and Alcoholism

Minor: Mass/school shootings and Fatphobia

thebacklistborrower's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death of parent, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Racial slurs, and Violence

alayamorning's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, and Sexual assault

Minor: Ableism, Bullying, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Violence