Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Cantik Itu Luka by Eka Kurniawan

2 reviews

raquelmozart_123's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

I wanted to love it so bad but the end could never suffice for all the wrongs and pain I had to go through as a reader (female and non white at that). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual content, Suicide, Murder, Abandonment, Stalking, Rape, Sexual harassment, Miscarriage, Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, Abortion, Sexism, Pedophilia, Gun violence, Excrement, Alcoholism, War, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Death, Cursing, Colonisation, Child death, Classism, Chronic illness, Gore, Confinement, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Kidnapping, Incest, Hate crime, Racism, Police brutality, Child abuse, Misogyny, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Body shaming

st0bbit's review against another edition

Appreciated the references to mythology and local terms used, especially the fact that this is the first book I've read by an Indonesian author – the history, folklore and culture of Indonesia genuinely shines through here and feels compelling to me.

However, this book seemed to rely on shock factor to draw readers in, and I only got increasingly uncomfortable as the story went on. I've read a few other reviews where they noted that this book was a critique behind Indonesia's misogynistic and sexist colonial history, but that was never very clear to me, I guess. I'm not familiar with this author's work and know nothing about him/her, so I'll do more research about that to see what this book was supposed to be, exactly. People are reduced to animals who crave sexual gratification, women are sexualised and written from a very heterosexual male gaze perspective, and I'm not hooked onto the book enough to want to read the whole thing to the end when I could google it. Would rate this 2 stars if I could.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Incest, Infidelity, Murder, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Violence