Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie

25 reviews

sarah_speaks's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Confinement, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Rape, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Death, and Racism

Moderate: Trafficking and Miscarriage

Minor: Abortion, Animal death, and War

leslie_overbookedsocialworker's review

emotional 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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Confinement, Hate crime, Racism, Racial slurs, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Murder, Rape, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, War, Toxic relationship, Classism, and Suicidal thoughts

yetilibrary's review

dark reflective sad 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

2.5

This book was a solid 3 until I got to the ending. I would have given it a 2, but, in spite of the slow pace (and the fact that it doesn't need to be 450 pages), it kept me engrossed. So I'll give it a 2.5.

So. That ending. Spoiler-free thoughts: I hated, hated, HATED the ending. The ending was utterly infuriating. I thought through it, and while it can be justified on the basis of character (flaws?), I think there are arguments that justify an alternative ending, and perhaps more to the point: I HATE IT. 

After finally finding "home"--in a person--and accepting love in her life, Nori returns to Japan. I agree that she pretty much has to. But then, she accedes to her merciless grandmother's demands, because she ... thinks she is fulfilling what Akira was going to do? Because she can probably close down one brothel? Because she believes she can eventually REFORM A GIANT MAFIA ENTERPRISE? Because she plans to change even more of her personality such that she can command mafiosi, and powerful businessmen in general? She isn't even ready to face her dying grandmother without ripping herself to shreds and fainting! And to do all this, she has to turn her back on her only true friend AND the man she loves--the father of her child. Furthermore, she dooms that child to the position in life that she held, albeit with a much better existence. 

It's possible to argue that she would do this out of devotion to Akira, the great love of her life, and because deep down, she still doesn't believe she deserves happiness or love. That's true. But this choice also requires belief that this is what Akira wants (her vision of him never says this), AND that this is what he wants for HER. It also requires belief that she is willing to hurt the two people she loves most in the world, and (essentially) sacrifice her child, for the sake of fulfilling her grandmother's wishes. Let's be clear: this was always what her grandmother wanted. 

My final reason for hating this ending is purely selfish: after so much pain in this book, I just wanted better for Nori. I wanted better for her than a return to the place that hurt her so much (she vomits when she gets to this house!), and a choice to take over the role that her wicked grandparents had held for so long, with no one she could trust at her side. And this was all due to a vision of her dead brother and a quixotic belief that she could stop her family's widespread evil, singlehandedly. (In fairness, I'm sure she can stop some of it. And it's a good and worthy goal. But I have my doubts that any one person can take down an operation that large, and that old.)

TL;DR I HATED THIS ENDING WITH ALL MY BEING.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Adult/minor relationship, Classism, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Suicide attempt, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Abandonment

Moderate: Racism, Slavery, Trafficking, and Rape

Minor: Rape

alicelalicon's review against another edition

emotional 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

2.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Miscarriage, Blood, Pregnancy, Racism, Car accident, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, and Infidelity

Moderate: Sexism, Pedophilia, and Trafficking

aimnorth's review

dark sad medium-paced

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

0.25

The book reads with lots of inconsistencies in storytelling.  Things that happen at the beginning of the book

like Alice and Nori reading the diaries together

are forgotten later on

like when it is said that Nori has never told anyone about the diaries before Noah

. Beyond plot inconsistencies, there are lots of character inconsistencies. Nori is often described as stupid one minute and then smart the next, by multiple other characters, and it changes to fit the plot of the moment. Character motivations change often, having one goal or personality until it's convenient for the plot that that character have an opposite motivation or personality

like when Akira is obscenely protective of Nori to the point of being constantly in her business, until it is convenient for him to ignore her with no explanation long enough for Nori to be raped by his best friend without him ever having the slightest notion it happened

. 

It doesn't seem as if the author had a great understanding of Japan in the 1930s-1950s, either, and the setting reads too modern sometimes while the character actions frequently read out of the 1800s, with all the woman constantly fainting or vomiting at the slightest inconvenience, and pregnancy being something nothing but the doctors, not even woman who have had children, can recognize or name. It's very odd and unrealistic. 

Nori also reads as being fetishized sometimes. Despite everyone in her family being described as tall, Nori is described as the shortest,  most petite person with "meager" strength that can still push people over. However, she is also often described as well-endowed starting when the character is 13. She is put through a lot of awful physical, verbal, and sexual abuse in the book and handles it with a sort of mild attitude. The pain is almost romanticized. It can come off quite gross, especially since this is happening to a minor for a majority of the book. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Rape, Death, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Racism, Suicide attempt, Child abuse, Car accident, Trafficking, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, and Blood

There is a graphic rape scene in the book. There are also extremely detailed incidents of skin bleaching, physical attacks, life threatening injuries, and suicide attempts. The main character, at one point, is part of a brothel. Lots of under age girls being mistreated often in the book. Read the whole thing will caution if any of the triggers are rough for you because they are continuous themes through the book.

cc0906's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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? It's complicated

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Grief

Moderate: Car accident, Child death, Infidelity, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Rape, Self harm, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Trafficking, and Xenophobia

Minor: War

briemont5's review

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Abandonment, Confinement, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Death, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Car accident, Infidelity, Self harm, Sexual assault, Trafficking, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Vomit, Miscarriage, Rape, and Suicidal thoughts

lucys_book_boutique's review

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Violence, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Rape, Pregnancy, Racism, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, Confinement, Child abuse, and Abandonment

Minor: Abortion

_desreads's review

dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Appropriate title and mood read during Juneary here in Seattle. I first heard about this book on the currently reading podcast, I was intrigued by the synopsis: in a post-WWII Japan, Nori is a young girl who is taught not to fight, resist or think. Only to obey. For reasons unknown to the reader, Nori is abandoned by her mother and left on the doorstep of her grandmother’s. Nori soon learns from her confinement to the attic, to the chemical baths to lighten her skin, that she is an outcast, and that her aristocrat mother had an “illegitimate” child with an American soldier. Nori is doing her best to obey her mother’s wishes in obedience and compliance when her older half brother, Akira, comes to stay with them. From there her life is turned upside down, knowing that she not only has a brother but someone else who knew their mother, and after she builds a relationship with him, she can no longer stay silent and endure this caged life. She must find a way to be free.

Ok I’ll start out with this: it was hard to put the book down. Lemmie creates a beautiful story and gritty characters from the beginning that sucks you in. You are rooting for Nori the entire time, which is what gets you through reading about all of the abuse she endures. But wow, it is one tragedy after tragedy for Nori, think Kristin Hannah style but with a less redemptive ending. We grow up with Nori and as the book spans decades of her life, we see glimpses of hope and redemption, but then the story veers in a completely differently direction, it can be disorienting. And I am sorry but I did not like the ending. At all. 

And yet, like I said, I had a hard time putting the book down, the characters are very compelling and you are Nori’s cheerleader the whole way through. Plus the historical context and setting of the novel is fascinating. I think Lemmie gave the world a great debut, this wasn’t totally for me, but I will 100% read her next one.

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Car accident, and Miscarriage

caleighrosebud's review

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, and Rape

Moderate: Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Blood, Classism, and War