Reviews tagging 'Abortion'

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

12 reviews

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

booksjessreads's review against another edition

This is the second time I have tried to read this book and I really struggled to keep reading. I found the lack of a plot line difficult to follow. Despite this, I have annotated the hell out of the first 120 pages that I had read because there were some really interesting themes running through but I just felt as though this book was not for me

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Sexism

Moderate: Violence, Suicide, Abortion, and Ableism

hausofbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexism, Misogyny, and Body shaming

Minor: Abortion, Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, and Miscarriage

isabell's review

challenging hopeful informative inspiring slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abortion

mmbc's review against another edition

dark reflective 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

4.5

I didn’t expect to be so completely engrossed in the lives of these four girls. I enjoyed learning about Korean culture and society and the pressures put on women (and men), while deeply relating to these girls and their experience navigating young adulthood. The author elegantly weaves together 4 lives, which could have come off as predictable or trite but I found poetic. The topics in this book are heavy, the frustration at the futility of life is real, but there is enough hope and joy and friendship to make this a great read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, and Body shaming

Minor: Abortion

spacepiratequeen's review

emotional reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming

Moderate: Abortion, Miscarriage, and Sexual assault

vixenreader's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

It has a great commentary on beauty standards and gender politics for women in South Korea. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Body shaming, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Cultural appropriation, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Sexism, and Sexual content

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Grief, Police brutality, Child abuse, Cursing, Death of parent, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Minor: Abandonment, Abortion, Bullying, Death, and Drug use

If surgery makes you queasy, be prepared for some stomach-turning scenes, and whorephobia is something to watch out for as well.

outersgrace's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Body shaming, Physical abuse, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Classism, Fatphobia, Medical content, Pregnancy, Sexism, Alcoholism, Bullying, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Gaslighting, Miscarriage, and Misogyny

Minor: Sexual content, Abortion, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Medical trauma, and Death

sseoryn's review

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense slow-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

3.75

i would have given it 4 stars if it weren't for the pace, the ending is somewhat satisfying, but in a way that's good bcs it gives the reader a chance to decipher their own versions of endings for each character. i would've liked to see more culture in it though, if it weren't for the characters names, occasional korean slangs i would have thought im just reading any ordinary contemporary english novel. i think it would have been a tad bit more interesting if they included ruby's pov, and maybe nami and hanbin yk? it would be really thought provoking and give a bit more insight to readers to know what goes on in a suicidal person's mind, a loving boyfriend who cheated, and a young girl who gave in early to *that* industry, personally i feel like frances wasted a lot of page count, especially on sujin? im not even sure if i got her name right, that's how much lack of background story frances gave on sujin, i couldn't get to know her as well as i knew other characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Bullying, Child abuse, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Infertility, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, and Pregnancy

spoilers