Reviews with content warning for Suicide - If I Had Your Face

Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

73 reviews

vildanda's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I listened to the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed it. The exploration of womens lives in South Korea and the different challenges they face was insightful and lead me down a rabbit hole wanting to find out more. I enjoyed how each perspective was read by a different narrator, it really helped to capture the characters emotions and perspectives. It was a little confusing to begin with however it eventually becomes clearer.

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daniellekat's review

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reflective fast-paced

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

2.25

This was the definition of OK. I didn't hate reading it, but nothing about it was particularly compelling. The author made some strange choices in the writing and structure of the book (i.e. no Sujin POV, ending the book mid way through the cycle of character POVs, so many odd paragraph breaks, etc.) I thought the general content of the book was interesting, especially since I'm far removed from South Korean culture, but I felt like Cha was trying to cover too many topics. As a debut the writing was solid, but the overall book could have been more tightly edited. The open-ending makes me wary of recommending this but I'd probably pick up Cha's writing again.

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marleen02's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing

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

4.5

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rexpostfacto's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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michelle_bernice92's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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sakisreads's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

3.5

✨ Thrifted ✨

This book has a bit of a slow start so I wasn’t sure how much I’d get into it… But I’m glad I persevered!
Based around Ara (a mute woman who works at a hair salon), Kyuri (a room salon worker), Miho (an artist whose move back to Seoul is fraught with relationship complications), Sijun (Ara’s protective best friend) and Wonna (the woman who lives in the apartment above the girls), this book had the resonance of ‘Girl, Woman, Other’. We explored beauty, family, feminism, and so much more!
I gave it 3.5 stars because it was, as mentioned above, a bit of a slow burner but once you got into it you couldn’t stop 👏🏼

Some of my favourite moments included are below 👀

When Ara shoved that assistant Cherry’s head down the toilet, I somehow felt vindication for her 😂

I loved when Miho finally realised Hanbin was not the prince she needed and she was able to find power in her ‘cliché’ moments (e.g. Cutting off some of her hair, deciding to leak photos to the paps…) 🙊

I am also a huge fan of Korean food so all of their descriptors of kalgukksu, KFC etc. made me hungry 😅

Content warnings included below!
Thank you ✨

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