Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

9 reviews

roosmarleen's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Blood, Vomit, Body shaming, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Self harm, Mental illness, Gaslighting, Excrement, Emotional abuse, and Confinement

cc24680'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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Self harm, Excrement, Toxic friendship, and Blood

robinks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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

4.75

Wow this book made me so uncomfortable. Heed the content warnings! There were some interesting philosophical questions brought up, and I like how Kawakami writes characters who are children. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Bullying, Violence, Domestic abuse, Blood, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Death, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Suicide, Vomit, Body shaming, Medical content, and Classism

Minor: Child death, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, and Death of parent

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

cviii's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Violence, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Sexual harassment, Blood, Suicidal thoughts, and Grief

Moderate: Excrement, Classism, Rape, Self harm, Suicide, Death of parent, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Eating disorder, and Medical content

conspystery's review

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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I’m conflicted about this book. It’s deceptive in how shallow it appears, especially towards the beginning; the writing style is subdued and polite almost to the point of clinicality, and the main character’s plight seems painfully simple. But it’s so much more than that. Kojima’s character arc is particularly fascinating, and so are her impacts on the narrator-- she’s presented sympathetically and ironically at once in her ideas about how best to deal with bullying. Momose is her narrative foil, the embodiment of the opposite extreme of these ideas. Heaven dives deep into the philosophy of bullying, and neither of the two main ways it’s presented are particularly appealing; Kojima is too willing to accept needless suffering, and Momose is too willing to fall into nihilism and hopelessness to care about anything, let alone other people. 

I think this book’s point is to balance these ideas about pain, to emphasize the importance of understanding that some suffering is out of our control while also asserting morality wherever it can be applied and standing up against needless pain when possible. It notes its own false dichotomy with how the main character responds to the ideas he’s shown. The way it makes this point is a bit meandering at times, with lots of scenes which feel like they compound the issues in the novel far past its main theme, and often deeply disturbing to read in its detail. Yet there are genuinely beautiful moments in this book as well, and the simple but precise writing highlights them in contrast with their darker, more uncomfortable counterparts. Overall, I liked what this book had to say about the importance of balance, and I also enjoyed the uncompromisingly sublime scenes (like at the very end of the novel.) The discomfort of the rest of the book was necessary to an extent, but some of it-- especially the scenes which were not explicitly, directly connected to the furthering of the philosophical content of the novel-- was a bit much for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Violence, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Blood, Eating disorder, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Excrement, Vomit, and Medical trauma

valeiar's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Excrement, Blood, Bullying, Medical content, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

ye_li's review

dark reflective tense fast-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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Blood, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content, Child abuse, and Eating disorder

Minor: Excrement

cantfindmybookmark's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-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? It's complicated

4.25

I gave this book a 5 star review on but I’m still not sure how I feel about it. 

On its surface this is a story of a friendship forged in trauma and the perils that arise from that. The story is narrated by a young boy who is brutally bullied by his classmates and follows his developing friendship with Kojima, a girl in his class who is also constantly bullied. There are very brutal and graphic scenes of children inflicting violence on other children that were sometimes hard to read, so definitely proceed with caution and check the trigger warnings. I don’t think those were the primary takeaway of the book however. Kawakami uses these scenes to explore different moral ideologies on the meaning of life and how those can be used to address trauma. The book explores the meaning of human relationships, familial love, power dynamics, ableism, and classism. 

The book is beautifully written and very hard to put down. It’s also so, so heartbreaking. Kawakami has such a gift for creating these characters that are so realistic and heartbreaking that by the end of the novel you just want to give them a hug. I know I will be thinking about these characters for a while. I hope they are ok. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, and Violence

Moderate: Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail