Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

4 reviews

sharnanigans's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Toxic relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Domestic abuse, Self harm, Rape, Eating disorder, Medical content, Sexism, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Blood, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Animal cruelty, Suicide, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Gore, Death, Sexual violence, Murder, Sexual assault, and Addiction

birdafterdark's review

challenging dark 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Eating disorder, Medical content, Mental illness, and Misogyny

Moderate: Infidelity, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, and Vomit

emily_journals's review against another edition

dark 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

This book is broken up into three segments, which are each told from a different character's POV and at different points in the story, which surprised me based on the description as I was expecting this story to all be from Yeong-hye's POV. Only the first segment has any of Yeong-hye's perspective, but her perspective is in the background of even that segment, as the first segment is from Yeong-hye's husband's perspective. 

I think the first segment of this book was my favorite, I enjoyed the commentary that the author was making about gender and family roles in Korea through the husband's perspective. I also enjoyed the snippets about Yeong-hye's dreams that were included in this segment, and I really wish this was continued throughout the rest of the book.

The second segment of the book is told from Yeong-hye's brother-in-law's perspective and this segment deals a lot with struggling with the failure to live up to expectations, and also with the exploiting and taking advantage of mental illness. This one was a bit weird to me, as the themes seemed to be working against the brother-in-law while the tone tried to make the audience empathize with him. I'm not sure if this tonal vs. theme discord was due to translation or if this was the way it was meant to be, but the discord was very off-putting and made me confused and unsure of what the author was trying to convey in this segment, so I didn't like this segment as much as the first.

The final segment of this book is told from Yeong-hye's sister's perspective and the main themes of this segment deal with the duties of  those in proximity to mental illness and the grief of losing someone while they're still alive. The themes of this segment are probably the most interesting in the book, but the sister's voice and inner monologue are quite strange, which might be due to translation but I'm unsure. The way that she switches between different feelings and trains of thought quite suddenly detracted from the story for me and made it really difficult to immerse myself in this portion of the book. 

Overall, I think the themes of this book were quite interesting, but I think either the author or the translation didn't have a clear vision of what voice they wanted to portray to the audience in the later two sections of the book. I also really missed Yeong-hye's short interjections in the later two sections that were present in the first section, I thought they added a lot to not only Yeong-hye's character but also to all the characters reacting to Yeong-hye in the first section. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Body horror, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Rape, Blood, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Addiction, Domestic abuse, and Alcoholism

jbcrue's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Medical content, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Confinement, Physical abuse, Torture, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Blood, Body horror, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Gore, Infidelity, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Self harm, Sexual violence, and Suicidal thoughts