Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

10 reviews

fairytomie's review

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

This book truly ripped my heart out. This is my introduction to Kawakami’s work and i’m in love with how poetic her writing is. 

Justice for these characters and the fact we don’t know what happened to Kojima is so heart-wrenching.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Sexual harassment, Body shaming, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Violence, Bullying, Ableism, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, and Self harm

Minor: Death of parent, Vomit, and Death

milkteeth's review

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Sexual harassment, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Self harm

roshma's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, and Sexual harassment

yuyuv's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Classism, Eating disorder, Ableism, Grief, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Medical content, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Blood, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Violence, and Sexual assault

exorbts's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Bullying, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Self harm and Eating disorder

loneliness, alienation, introversion

anica990's review

Reading about how viscerally the main character is bullied was extremely difficult. It made me feel horrible because it's basically graphically described abuse. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Ableism

kianga_black's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Eating disorder, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Classism, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Police brutality, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Violence

gloomyheart's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I think I have a very conflicting, bordering on love-hate relationship with this book. Having just finished it, I wish to explore and decode the small or large points in this book that have impacted me.

To begin this review, I would like to emphasise how talented the translators are as writers. Both of them have the ability to portray agitated, confusing scenes with such ease and lightness. 

Reading many of the reviews for this book, a lot people have given it three stars because they "don't get it". Truth to be told, I can't hold this against them. The writing is beautiful, but the topics at hand are both complex and dark. Classically 'fun' reading is not the point of this book. It reveals the complex and devastating truth about bullying and teenage sadness. It is interesting to note that even the order of the book reveals a raw portrayal of life, as the first page is already a letter from Kojima asking the narrator to be his friend. Then we witnessed him being bullied and met his family. The order is messy. It is a reflection of real life. We learn things about people who are being bullied in real life in a more complicated and messy way than in a straight-line. We gradually unravel the meaning and all the little signs we see at the beginning as the bullying proceeds. It almost resembled a puzzle as it progressed. There is almost an impression that the book isn't fiction, the reader feels as if they are reading a true story. It is often the case that we do not meet a person's parents or see them being bullied when we first meet them in real life. In the beginning, we may simply observe them to be a bit awkward or with a friend. In this book, the chaos and unexpectedness that are found in everyday life are prominently depicted. 

The book also succeeds in exploring the nature of bullying. To avoid spoilers, I will not go into too much detail, but I found the way that Mieko Kawakami approached these themes to be quite striking. The book is more philosophical than entertaining in nature. 

That said, my love for this book was not pure unbiasedness as many of the scenes being portrayed hit very close to home, and Kojima in particular eerily resembled my girlfriend. 

And whilst the book depicted the horrors of bullying and sadness well, there were moments that seemed a bit unrealistic. How is it that throughout the entire book, the teachers never once noticed anorexic, depressed or bullied students? Or even the parents, they never once thought that something might be off? 

One final complaint I would like to make about this book is the fact that I found the ending quite disappointing. The book is in my opinion near perfect from a philosophical standpoint, but as a reader who is looking for entertainment, I found it to be somewhat disappointing and actually a bit flat. Although there was much anticipation for what would happen at the end, I found that it was a rather dull experience. While I understand the book's intent to reflect society and life, as a reader, I expected that there would be some excitement at the end.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Bullying

Moderate: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Mental illness

Minor: Toxic relationship

lwalla01's review

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

I can’t say that I was a fan of this book. The writing didn’t capture me - whether that was the translation or not, I’m not sure. The story was also fairly disjointed. It’s so dark and crude. But not in a way that makes sense. The title seems completely out of a place to me. Sometimes I can read a book that provokes a lot of questions and insights, and sometimes so read a book that seems to try to reach for profound out of nowhere. Reading this book reminds me of all the reasons people hate literary fiction.

I’ve also read quite a few of the 2022 Man Booker International Long List and why do all of them deal with suicide. It’s pretty disturbing at this point. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Toxic relationship, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide

carrotcake's review

dark emotional sad tense

• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Shes a very good writer like she really made me want to beat up a bunch of kids

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Sexual violence and Ableism