Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - A Tale for the Time Being

This one was certainly a ride. Picked this one up on a whim at a small local bookstore and it was a great find. The idea of connecting with someone through an old lost diary is really interesting and the way it was pulled off here was great. Nao felt like a real person and I felt like I was reading her real diaries

Overall I would recommend this to anyone willing to do a thorough search of the content warnings because it is a heavier read with a lot of depressing moments

Content Warnings

lilacwhisker's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

Loved this book so much!! It being told from the perspective of the reader and writer of the diary was so fun and interesting to read. I also really liked the appendices and cliff notes added. Nao was an amazing character and I loved reading about her while also learning about Buddhism. I thought the way that Ruth and Nao’s characters contrasted made for an exciting story and I also liked how they shared similarities in their lives and it felt like their two separate stories blended more and more the further I got into the book.

Content Warnings

anna220310's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

thmei's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

i adored this book. it just worked for me in every possible way. i related so much to nao’s perspective , even when the events of our lives deviated, and the way ruth ozeki captured the inner dialogue of a 16 year old felt so authentic and intelligently done. i may have loved ruth’s parts even more. i know a lot of people didn’t really like her story, but i adored it. i totally understood the experience of feeling consumed by someone else’s story and i loved how much of ruth you still saw in her story despite how much nao’s diary came to affect her. i adored ruth and all the other people in her life and i thought inserting herself and her husband as characters gave this novel a really interesting relationship to truth that played with nao’s story in such a cool way. and the ending. i know people hated this too. i tend to read negative reviews before i pick something up just to see if i think its flaws might bother me and to make sure a book isnt gonna spring a super triggering or bigoted scene or anything like that on me, and when i read about the sharp left turn into magical realism, i thought for sure i’d hate the ending too. instead i adored it. it felt very well foreshadowed to me, so while there’s one scene that very clearly marks the tip off the edge of our world, it didn’t feel shocking to me when that happened. several things in this book go very pointedly unexplained and several things happen that are obviously supernatural, and while you can explain them away as being imagined or made up, i don’t think the text makes them feel that way at all. a magical ending felt like the right place to go. plus, it felt like the only way to satisfy the story. what happened at the end felt like what needed to happen. it served the rest of the story well.

this book explored a lot of themes in a very tangible, human way and that’s what i loved about it. i think i could talk about it for ages. it obviously won’t work for everyone, but i personally am very glad i picked it up. if you’re a writer, a big reader, someone who feels a little lost or a little lonely, someone who had a rough childhood or shitty parents, or someone who likes to think about life or death or truth or memory or love or anything else in the synopsis, give it a shot.

i’m going to keep the content warning explanations as spoiler free as possible but i do still want to explain the big things, because i think there are some things you can skip around if you have to, and for some you should avoid this book entirely if you think they might trigger you. i’ve marked pretty much everything as spoilers so if you’re just looking for one specific explanation, you can choose that. i know i always want explanations so hopefully someone finds them helpful.

Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Suicide

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Death of parent, Dementia, Toxic friendship, Violence, Vomit, and War

Minor: Animal cruelty, Cursing, Death, and Racial slurs

BULLYING:

nao endures some pretty terrible physical and emotional bullying and it takes up the majority of her story. even during the parts where it isn’t currently happening, it’s often mentioned.

SEXUAL ASSAULT/SEXUAL VIOLENCE, ADULT/MINOR RELATIONSHIP, BLOOD, TOXIC FRIENDSHIP:

at one point nao is ambushed in a bathroom by her classmates. they take pictures of her using the bathroom, attack her as she tries to run away, lift up her skirt, and steal her underwear. they try to convince each other to rape her, but no one does. later they put her underwear up for auction online, which is brought up several times throughout the book. she is on her period at the time.

it is obvious when this scene will happen, so easy to skip if any of this will trigger you.

the auction

, however, is mentioned several times after.

nao also befriends the head of a brothel by accident and starts doing sex work, and while it doesn’t seem like she thinks of herself as a prostitute and she calls the two men “dates,” she knows there’s money involved and the second encounter especially is not voluntary. neither are described as very violent and the first nao even describes as quite pleasant, but both are still sex work with older men and in the second she describes going to another place in her mind to cope. the sex is not super graphic in either but it is described.

SUICIDE, VOMIT: this is a main theme of this book. several suicide attempts are described (vomit is described, and the cleaning up of vomit). nao and her father are both intent, from page one, on committing suicide. nao’s perspective was not triggering for myself as someone who was suicidal for a long time, but i think someone who is currently suicidal should absolutely avoid this book, and someone who has been affected by the suicide/suicidal thoughts of someone close to them should be careful. PHYSICAL ABUSE, VIOLENCE:

nao’s physical abuse by her bullies is described. a relative of nao’s was a wwii soldier, and his physical abuse by his superiors is described.

it’s not terribly graphic, but it is not really avoidable. WAR:

nao’s relative is conscripted as a suicide bomber. his letters and diary describe his time in training and his facing death.

no active war scenes are described, but the broad topic of wwii is discussed at length. DEATH OF PARENT, DEMENTIA: ruth’s mom died of dementia before the events of the book. she reminisces about her mother and is insecure about her own sometimes failing memory. nao also thinks often of her own father’s potential death. ANIMAL CRUELTY: no human being is cruel to an animal! this is the closest tag there is to something like “animal injury” and i thought this scene should be tagged.

two characters in ruth’s story mention losing their animals to other wildlife- not in graphic detail but they mention being sad and one character’s wife describes him following a dog and watching, unable to save it. towards the end of the book, ruth’s cat goes missing and is found severely injured by another animal. the injury is described for a sentence or two. the cat does not die.

CURSING: not graphic or common at all. just put it so those who hate cursing will be prepared to hear a word or two. if i remember correctly, there’s a couple normal curse words and a couple instances of nao being a crude teenager and mentioning genitalia or thinking about violent situations. DEATH:

a major character dies at the end. it is not violent or particularly upsetting. it is sad.

RACIAL SLURS:

no character uses racial slurs in a violent, angry, or assaulting manner. ruth, a japanese woman, uses the word j*p to describe a house where an old japanese family used to live before japanese internment in wwii. if i remember correctly, this is the only slur and it’s only used once or twice in the very beginning of the book.

princessfabulous's review

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challenging dark slow-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

3.0

Content Warnings

bugcollector's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

shoohoob's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Very glad I gave this book another chance and listened to the audiobook. First half was still so slow but picked up halfway through. Some parts didn’t really click with me, but overall I did enjoy it.

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