Reviews with content warning for Schizophrenia/Psychosis - The Vegetarian

Reviews tagging 'Schizophrenia/Psychosis '

kirstentlei's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-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

1.0

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tyras_bookshelf's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Very vivid and creative but also so so distributing!!

I couldn’t finish part 3 at first because outside of watching Yeong-hye waste away, I couldn’t figure what the point of it all was. Like the story stared to drag.

I was really into it at first even though Yeong-hye husband’s was absolutely terrible. I thought her strange behavior was gonna be because she was running a crime ring or something interesting and ironic since her husband viewed her as boring and average. But actually she’s devolving into psychotic fits.

These dreams and nightmares about meat eating and memories from her childhood completely make this character into a simultaneously erratic and stoic person.

Then we get into part two, and the brother in law also starts kinda normal before he lets his baser nature and obsession get the best of him. Like can you imagine marrying your wife but wanting her sister then actually going through with cheating even while you know that sister is ill? Absurd. And he was a terrible father, even before his obsession with the sister.

All the dads/husbands were pretty terrible, so maybe that’s social commentary about patriarchy. Idk.

So Yeong-hye’s part was about disconnecting from something central to her—her relationship with meat—and like pushing something away. But it being told her husbands POV takes away her autonomy that she doesn’t recover through the book.

While the brother in law’s section was about indulgence and like stepping into something. He was so persistent in his pursuit to create art, and slake his lust at the expense of everything else.

So the main characters of these parts are both at extremes but then the sister is a thread between all three parts. She’s just kinda there; caretaker, jilted wife, “the good sister” etc.

All of part 3 made me want to throw up so I had to skip to the last few passages. It felt like part 3 was a different book entirely from parts 1 and 2.

While I don’t understand the message or goal of the book, I’m left with a few things:

How tragic illness can be on a family when someone’s body can betray them so intimately and completely.

Angry at how In-hye could blame herself for every terrible thing that happened in the story-- husband‘s adultery, Yeong-hye sickness, her father’s abuse. It felt so unfair that the most gentle character has to deal with so much heartache and responsibility, also cannot see how valuable she is to her family.

Very odd book.

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paulinibehr's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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illiterate_chloe's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

1.75

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amapola54's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

3 capítulos narrados por 3 personajes. La protagonista no tiene voz en el libro, ellos hablan por ella. Tiene varios pasajes desagradables o violentos

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leo_liest's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

eriosyce's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense 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

4.0

Content Warnings

magicalghoul's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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

4.75

Clubs de Lectura 2025: Enero

How do you navigate the weight of life and all the patriarchal violence inflicted on you, without going... mad? Without detaching yourself from reality and wanting to turn into a tree, like Daphne did?

The first two parts enraged me so (not because the text was bad, the characters and situations just feel so real and it was obvious we weren't meant to sympathize with the men) while the third and last part almost brought me to tears.

While reading the first part I thought that yeong-hye didn't have a community, that even her family favored the men in her life. By the third part it's apparent that she had In-hye all along, and the struggle of the sister to keep that bond afloat pained me so much.

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