Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Grotesque

Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino

9 reviews

elishamarie_'s review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

illusionsdaughter's review against another edition

0.5

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

So much of this was hard to read, which may be in part due to the translation. I think this book actually dragged on quite a bit, but it has made me think a lot about how women in Japanese society actually grow up. There is so much idolization of Japan’s culture, so much skimming over weird subtext in anime, blatant misogyny. While this is fiction, fiction holds a grain of truth. I think that’s what is unnerving about kirino’s writing. However wild she may dive, it never seems too wild. Graphic book, trigger warning for everything! I will also add that I did enjoy the emboldening of sex workers, even if they came from wildly different perspectives. Too often this world has been trained to think of them as as revolting whores or lustful accompaniments to men’s revulsion. But this paints women’s sexuality as their own, as sex work being a basis of freedom and accompaniment and success for others, truly, and points out how misogyny is known to the sex worker too, and the only difference between disgust with a sex worker’s johns and a sex worker’s own disgust, is that the johns can get away with killing them for it easier.

Content Warnings

directorpurry's review against another edition

4.0

dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

phantomfighter724's review against another edition

3.5

dark sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

teumessian_vixen's review against another edition

4.25

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

One of the official reviews of this book describes it as less of a crime novel and more of a character study, and I agree with that. The cast of characters are all morally ambiguous and unreliable narrators, and it was interesting to see their multiple takes on the same events. The book leaves a lot up for interpretation but that’s definitely intentional on the author’s part. There’s a recurring motif of what makes someone monstrous/“grotesque” that I found fascinating, especially in the context of Kirino’s other works.

Overall: a book that navigates intense and dark subject matters without sugar-coating or glamorizing, while asking some deep questions about how people (but particularly women) interact with society.

Content Warnings