Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

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

4 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.

emoryscott's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective tense fast-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? No

5.0

This was a fantastic read. I had actually never even heard of the WTO protests, despite having  education in international studies. I love the way the story developed through each of the characters’ perspectives. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Police brutality, Violence, Murder, Vomit, and Toxic relationship

kbusemeyer's review

dark emotional informative reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

I think this book was overall pretty good, there were a lot of scenes that felt real and the author did a great job and getting you immersed in the scene. There were definitely things I didn’t like where scenes went on too long or it felt like the language switched to be more poetic for no reason. The POV also switched up a lot, which was strange.

Ju’s character was so poorly written to me, especially compared to King who felt more developed. Ju felt like she was there to be an accessory to everything else going on. 

The last section of the book left a lot of things up to interpretation, which was good and bad. I think it is nice to have the ambiguity, but some characters feel like they could’ve just finished. Charles Wickhamshire for example, I’m not sure why we met Martin and had them plan how to unite African ministers and everything just for the story to end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Racism

This is about protests and they definitely do go into some graphic detail.