Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Heaven

Heaven is written beautifully and on multiple pages, I wish I could grab a paragraph straight from the book and glue it onto my wall. The story felt messy at times but as it was fairly short, it didn't bother me too much. I was too drawn in by the absoluty painful bullying narrative and the range of conversations between the narrator and Kojima. A lot of moments in the book felt like a stab to the chest as they reminded me of my younger self and the growing dark tone of the book had me holding my breath, always expecting the worst. I have a love-hate relationship with the ending and I'm not sure how long it might take me to really make up my mind about it. But the overall book made me silent, tearing up a little, feeling stuck in my head, and it is pretty powerful how such a short novel can get me that way. Will definitely try another Kawakami book in the near future.

Content Warnings

madelinequinne's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

amymcphrsn's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

I found it a really difficult read. Though I wasn’t personally affected by bullying at school the passages detailing the bullying and physical violence were really upsetting for me, I’d been reading it on and off for months for this reason. I’m glad I’ve read it, but it will be a long time if ever before I pick it up again.

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