Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Cantik Itu Luka by Eka Kurniawan

33 reviews

greencalcite's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

5.0

It took me maybe 5 years to get around to finishing this story. Wow, absolutely wild and lush writing from Eka Kurniawan. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual assault, Colonisation, Rape, Incest, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, and War

issyd23's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Unlike anything I’ve ever read - completely disgusting but also moving at times. Very clever how Eka waves in political and social history of Indo 4⭐️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Animal death, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Cannibalism, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Classism, Cursing, Infidelity, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Rape, Excrement, Gaslighting, Genocide, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, War, Grief, Murder, Violence, Racism, and Self harm

jiao_li's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Honestly this book was not my cup of tea, but surprisingly I love it! Iseng aja baca di GramDig karena mikir kalo baca buku fisiknya pasti pegel, deh😅 Bab awal-awal menurutku cerita dan gaya bahasanya aneh, tp justru itu yang bikin aku penasaran dan tetap lanjut baca.

Tokoh di dalam buku ini banyak bgt btw, it amazes me that the author can made every characters diverse! And ofcourse, it's kinda hard for me to keep up with all the characters and events that happened in the book:')

Aku suka tokoh utama perempuannya. Dewi Ayu dan anak-anaknya tuh tenang banget, walaupun mereka aneh sih—tp semua orang di buku ini jg aneh. About the male characters.. ugh they were really annoying, only cares about sex and women. Kayaknya satu-satunya yang waras di buku ini cuma si penggali kubur Kamino.

The book has a twist near the end, and IT WAS INSANE! I have to put down this book in disbelief several times. Intinya buku ini mungkin nggak akan masuk buku favoritku, tapi aku bakal merekomendasikan buku ini ke orang lain karena aku suka ceritanya yang aneh dan gila.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Violence

Moderate: Child death and Gun violence

Minor: War

thegodfather's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Murder, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexism, Suicide, Torture, Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Incest, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Rape, Toxic relationship, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Classism, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, and War

brusboks's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.5

This is a good book, an Indonesian epic. 

There are a lot of content warnings for this book. And at times the amount of rape is at times so overwhelming and tiresome that the only thing you can do is just take a physical break from the book. 

However, this is also a central point of the book, as well as providing the reader with a feeling of neusea at times. This is the story of how Indonesia was raped, time and time again. 

Through the good use of Indonesian folklore as well as Indonesian history the story takes us through the most formative decades in contemporary Indonesian history. And it shows brutally, through the rape, incest and violence towards a family across generations how Indonesia, for all it's beauty, has time and time again been fucked over by other colonizing and conquering nations and states. But also how it has fought back, at times in really cunning ways.

A neccessary counterpoint to this is the use of dark humour and fairytales. Every chapter in itself could be read as a seperate modern fairytale, but is also an epic story of a family across generations.  The author is a brilliant storyteller.

If you can stomach it, it is highly recommended.  But be prepared for what lies ahead. Beauty is a wound. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Miscarriage, Rape, Stalking, Suicide, Pregnancy, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Violence

readerinthedale's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Rape, Violence, Suicide, Incest, Animal death, and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Death, Pedophilia, War, Colonisation, and Rape

Minor: Abortion, Miscarriage, Excrement, and Infidelity

liagatha's review against another edition

dark sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Colonisation, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Genocide, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racism, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, and War

raaaeanne's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Pedophilia, and Colonisation

Moderate: Incest, Violence, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, and Death

Minor: Animal cruelty and Excrement

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

annamontg's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I was very intrigued by the premise of this - magical realism, mythology, world-building, Indonesian history, colonialism, historical basis. However it was very WEIRD, with a lot of graphic sexual assault and the women are treated terribly. Cleverly written and the author has an amazing imagination but the vulgarity of the language put me off - and I'm normally not put off my that kind oft thing. Off the scales levels of awfulness.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Animal cruelty, Incest, and Animal death