Reviews tagging 'War'

Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa

2 reviews

orlagal's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Violence, Vomit, Colonisation, Cursing, Classism, Confinement, Police brutality, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Death, War, Abandonment, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Deportation, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Cancer, Gore, and Medical content

cheye13's review against another edition

challenging tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

4.0

This is an amazing book. A very important read – though difficult – for any American. Not a five star because it didn't strike me personally; I didn't get anything from the story that's unique to me, that anyone else won't pick up on. Still an expertly crafted and vitally important book.

Yapa's nuance with each character and the world within the book is so impressive, and his use of language is flawless. He strikes an excellent balance between empathy and distance, using a stream of consciousness narration that lets the scenes of intense violence ebb and flow, interspersed with scenes of beauty.

I was way too young to remember anything of the WTO protests, but I could not divorce the book from vivid memories of the 2014 BLM protests. A wonderful book, and an unfortunately apt one for our current sociopolitical climate.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Blood, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Grief, Hate crime, Death, Death of parent, Xenophobia, War, Genocide, and Murder

Minor: Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Vomit, Colonisation, Racial slurs, and Sexual assault

the majority of the book is graphic, detailed police brutality. It is brief and only once, but there is a description of Sri Lankan civil war that includes horrific and ethnically motivated violence.