Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

21 reviews

rexpostfacto's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Classism, Body horror, Body shaming, and Child abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Eating disorder, Grief, Medical content, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, and Suicide

Minor: Violence, Miscarriage, Xenophobia, and Sexual content

aubigney's review

dark sad slow-paced

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

1.0

I found this book extremely depressing to the point that I couldn’t finish it. I got to the sex worker’s affair and simply stopped reading. It was like everything good in life had been taken away from me. She was also extremely drunk and blacking out when the affair started, which makes me think the author is normalising sexual assault and passing it off as simply an affair instead of someone taking advantage of a sex worker who is much younger. I don’t know why someone would write a book like this except that they themselves were extremely miserable and going through it. The prose was not good so it wasn’t worth finishing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Sexual assault, Fatphobia, Eating disorder, Alcoholism, and Infidelity

leannanecdote's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful reflective medium-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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Drug use, Dysphoria, Fatphobia, Grief, Sexism, Infertility, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Eating disorder, Cursing, Blood, Classism, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Ableism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Self harm, and Abandonment

liv_txt's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Fatphobia, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Body shaming, Bullying, and Eating disorder

daria_mm's review

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Physical abuse, Alcohol, Misogyny, and Sexism

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Eating disorder and Miscarriage

arieslofi's review

emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexism, Eating disorder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Addiction

Moderate: Vomit, Violence, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Infidelity, and Infertility

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Sexual content, and Suicide

chiar_'s review against another edition

reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Body shaming, Misogyny, Alcohol, Pregnancy, and Sexism

Moderate: Eating disorder, Classism, and Infidelity

Minor: Miscarriage

dylanrea's review

dark funny hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.0

A wonderful novel. Delves into so many topics of womanhood in modern day Seoul (and indeed most of modern society), highlighting both good and bad in each area, navigating through these 5 women’s lives. Each character has their flaws and redeeming qualities, but they are all undoubtedly loveable.

I love Frances Cha’s writing style - I hope she writes more books! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Sexism, Classism, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Sexual content, Violence, and Alcohol

Moderate: Miscarriage

Minor: Death of parent

ionamcewan's review

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad fast-paced

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

5.0

A haunting often harrowing book that is ultimately a message of how to live in the day

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Suicide, Sexism, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Death, Blood, Body shaming, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Sexual violence, Eating disorder, Body horror, and Sexual content

vintovka's review

dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

3.5

So, the thing you need to understand about IIHYF is it's painfully short. I doubt it has more than 70k words, while having five main characters and four p.o.v.'s. So. Yeah.

The book got surprising amount of events and things happening on its pages, but not a lot of character development.  Most of it is ambigiously left off screen. Did Ara realise something about the nature of parasocial relationship and consumption? Does Wonna have a chance of actually being a good mother in the future, or will her trauma ruin any of her children? Will Miho get over her friend's suicide, and what will it do to her? Will Seunjin regret going down the route of debt and prostitution? I don't know. I can only guess. Which kind of leaves me wondering what even was the point. 

I love reading about the good, the bad and the ugly of different female experiences, so I was excited for this book. It gave of vibes of kind of an antithesis to girls' fairy tales and female wish-fullfillment fantasies. It's not _not_ that, but because it's not anything at all. I got attached to the characters and their lives, but the ending left me stumped. What did the book want to say? What was the point of me reading all that?

The book's redeeming qualities are being short and having good, flowing prose, but in the end, IIHYF is a snapshot of how it sucks to be a poor south korean woman, and it doesn't have anything more than that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Misogyny, Sexism, Alcohol, Child abuse, Classism, Pregnancy, and Cursing

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Suicide, Ableism, Death of parent, Eating disorder, and Abortion