Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Una vita come tante by Hanya Yanagihara

1528 reviews

celery's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Child abuse, Confinement, Sexual content, Fatphobia, Pedophilia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Stalking, Violence, Vomit, Body shaming, Car accident, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Drug use, Gore, Rape, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Addiction, Alcohol, Body horror, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Abandonment, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Blood, Bullying, Grief, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, and Toxic relationship

sachisoutham's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense 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

4.75

The most disastrously beautiful book I've ever read. 
Tackling major issues and confronting the reader with heartbreaking and painful trauma as the book follows decades of adulthood for four male friends in New York.  This book made me sob until I couldn't breathe and I would let it do it to me again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Toxic relationship, Mental illness, Car accident, Blood, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, Homophobia, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Rape, Sexual assault, Self harm, and Panic attacks/disorders

syonkerstalz's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Ableism, Toxic friendship, Sexual assault, Violence, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Suicide, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Grief, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Child death, Pedophilia, Blood, Mental illness, and Sexual violence

nuka_zip's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

1.5

After struggling through this book for about 2 months (normally, I'm a fast reader) I finally finished it today. I've been wanting to stop reading this book after about 60 pages but I forced myself through because I wanted to understand why so many people seemed to love this book.
Now I finished reading and while at times, I couldn't put it down (it's like a car crash, you just can't look away), I still don't understand the hype at all. If someone who loves this book dearly, could please tell me why, I'd be really grateful.
I have a few thoughts about it though...
First of all:
The chapters are way too long for my liking. I know this is subjective, but I personally think it would have been good to break up those immensely long chapters into smaller sections. Especially, since there are perspective shifts or recountings of the past in the chapters. Why not split those up into separate chapters? But again, this is subjective.
Secondly:
It is perfectly fine to show a realistic depiction of self-harm and sexual abuse and all the things Jude struggles with and suffers through. Trigger warnings would have been nice though.
Another thing that bothers me is that apparently, the author didn't research anything about living with disabilities or the mental health issues that someone with Jude's background might have. That is not to say that she can't write about themes and topics outside of her lived experience. But if you are going to write about these topics, I feel it is your due diligence to educate yourself on them. I myself am able-bodied and cannot speak on behalf of the disabled community, but I feel that the message of the book, that some people are just too broken to "fix" (and in general the use of the words repaired or fixed in regards to Jude's disabilities) is really gross.
A thing I have read several times as well, is that the characters feel super real and fleshed out and I also take issue with that. On the first 100 pages or so, we get a bit of a sense of the other characters, like Malcolm and JB, but very soon they take a step back and at some point just feel sprinkled in to advance the plot. We read of Malcolm anytime Jude moves apartments or builds a house and then that's it. Any of the other times he is mentioned, you might as well strike out his name and it wouldn't make a difference. JB is a little more fleshed out but he too feels very reduced to his profession, apart from

the arc about his addiction

. I have nothing to say about Willem, as he is a pretty fleshed-out character, even though I can't wrap my head around his behavior sometimes.
In general, I can't wrap my head around how these characters navigate Jude's mental illness at all. Especially in contrast with how they handled

JB's addiction and how they quickly started an intervention and forced him to get the help he needed

. The fact that they didn't do that with Jude in the earlier parts of the story, where he already is very ill and in need of professional help, is beyond me.
To conclude this review rant, I think the overall message of the book is very gross. The notion that some people are just beyond help and that there's nothing you can do about it is disgusting to me . I've seen people compare mental and physical health a lot in this regard, and while in many ways it is a fitting comparison, it doesn't apply here. Your body healing/not healing has nothing to do with how you feel about it. Your mind healing has everything to do with how you feel about it. If I had read this book when I was a little younger and at the peak of my depression, I don't think I would be alive today. When you are in that depressed mindset, nothing feels like it will get better again, even though it might and there are people who love you, and actually confirming that in the way this story did could be really dangerous. Especially since a lot of young people are currently reading this because of Tiktok. Accepting help is not selfish. You are never truly alone, even when it feels like you are. There are people who love you and want to help and see you happy. Don't listen to what your brain is trying to make you believe. Listen to the people you love and who love you.
It does get better. It will be different, but it will be okay.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Violence

emilyab's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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

5.0

This book is beautiful and the relationships between characters is so great, especially between Jude and William. The book is beautifully written. However this book is extremely sad, traumatic, and hard to read. It truly broke me over and over again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Death and Eating disorder

abbeyrode's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Chronic illness, Suicide attempt, Violence, Blood, Sexual assault, Drug use, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Suicide, Gore, Abandonment, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Addiction, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Death, Rape, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, and Medical content

ethanzanemiller's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense 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? Yes

4.5

This is an astoundingly difficult book that pushes the reader deeper and deeper through layers of unimaginable suffering. So it is an exploration of how devastating abuse is to a life and yet also how resilient humans can be. It's sad sad sad. But not without moments of light that will then be darkened, mostly. It's a book filled with kmmense love. It's an exploration of male friendship.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Child abuse, and Violence

isabellearthofer's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense 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? Yes

4.5

To say i enjoyed the book is not quite right but i was very mesmerized by this book and especially the way the author writes so beautifully, although sometimes the way she describes something, a situation, a person or whatever it is feels very verbose.

My biggest issue i guess was just that for most of the book i just couldn't wrap around how many bad things could happen to one person and it felt a little unrealistic at times. But on the other hand the immensity of setbacks and trauma that happen in this book are what make it really interesting.

It made me reflect a lot on how i personally deal with my mental health issues and how i make other people feel with what i tell them about myself.

Overall i very beautifully written book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Child abuse, Body shaming, and Toxic relationship

xaqrii's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Sexual violence, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Body shaming, Physical abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Eating disorder, Kidnapping, Medical content, Rape, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Confinement, Drug abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical trauma, Pedophilia, Death, Forced institutionalization, Suicide, Child abuse, Violence, Self harm, Chronic illness, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

juliabristow's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

2.5

Several months ago I was talking to a friend and I mentioned that I had gotten this book and immediately she just said "oh, the trauma porn book." In my head I was very dismissive, thinking I was pretty sure she hadn't even read the book and was just being annoying. But now that I've read it,,,, yeah 😭

The book starts out really strong if you enjoy contemporary fiction, but the more and more you dig in to Jude's backstory the more just unnecessary it feels. I actually have nothing against depicting really dark and traumatic experiences in books, but I feel very strongly that if you're going to do it it has to serve a purpose, and in this instance I just don't really think it did. I think you could argue that ONE of Jude's childhood traumas would be constructive to the story, explain his refusal to open up to people, and give the reader enough sympathy towards him. But after time and time again of learning something awful that happened to him, it stops being useful to the narrative and only exhausts the reader. [spoiler ahead] I genuinely laughed when Willem died because I had become numb to feeling bad for Jude and the amount of shock-value trauma was almost comical. Maybe that makes me a bad person but I don't care!!

Not only does the trauma get old, I also really stopped being able to sympathize with Jude once I got about 3/4 of the way through the book. I know him refusing therapy is a common point throughout the book, but jesus CHRIST go to therapy. I genuinely just can't feel bad for someone who isn't even trying. Refusing to go to therapy, forcing himself to have sex with Willem, apologizing to people for being sick, it honestly just becomes insufferable after 700 pages of it. And again, it serves NO purpose. Things would be different if the book was about his journey to recovery and overcoming the trauma, but instead the author just slaps some improvement at the end before finally having Jude kill himself anyway - there's absolutely no message or anything to take away besides "wow, that guy's life sucked." And again, maybe that makes me a bad person, but I think the real answer is that my friend was right and the book is just trauma porn.

Most people will say that this book is emotionally devastating and will make you cry, and that is true! But I only cried at the happy moments, which are few and far between, and the sad parts would be much more impactful if there was an actual point to them, like I've said several times already.

Anyway, at the end of the day I don't think this is actually a BAD book, just an unnecessary one that spreads potentially harmful messages and would probably cause someone with similar experiences to go off the deep end themselves. In the acknowledgments at the end the author has a list of people she consulted for medical, legal, and artistic advice, and the fact that there isn't a mental health expert in that list feels like a sign

Rant over, 3 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Self harm, Pedophilia, Rape, Ableism, Eating disorder, Medical content, Chronic illness, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Trafficking, Violence, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Medical trauma, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Blood, Body shaming, Religious bigotry, Death, and Grief

Minor: Vomit