Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

29 reviews

daniellekat's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Sexism, Alcohol, Misogyny, Classism, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Sexual content, Violence, Pregnancy, Grief, and Vomit

Minor: Death of parent, Miscarriage, and Suicide

sex work

marleen02's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Bullying, Medical content, Alcohol, Blood, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Suicide, and Toxic relationship

kerrence30's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Insightful look into a concept of room girls which I was not previously familiar with. Beautifully written and despite some characters making choices you may not agree with, you are rooting for them equally. A touch on the expectations of Korean culture for context, it highlights how some aspects are both widely accepted to exist and yet unacceptable to partake in.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Sexism, Medical content, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, and Pregnancy

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

prism_'s review

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content

Moderate: Classism, Alcohol, Miscarriage, Toxic relationship, and Pregnancy

Minor: Infidelity and Infertility

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

sakisreads's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Self harm, Grief, Miscarriage, Body shaming, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Blood, Bullying, Death, and Fatphobia

alicelalicon's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Classism, Abandonment, Physical abuse, Sexism, Medical content, Violence, Body shaming, Bullying, and Toxic friendship

doodeedoda's review against another edition

dark reflective sad 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Alcohol, Body shaming, and Cursing

Moderate: Suicide, Classism, Miscarriage, Sexual content, and Misogyny

Minor: Abortion, Ableism, Fatphobia, Pedophilia, and Adult/minor relationship

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