Reviews with content warning for Death - Heaven

mä oon ihan sanaton

okei nyt on mennyt yli kuukausi ?? siitä kun luin tän ja vau, joka päivä mä vaan ajattelen tätä. meinasin oksentaa kun luin tätä tho. aika usein tuli huono olo. päähenkilö on mä (välillä) ”i spent almost all day reading in my room. i never went anywhere.” pliis mä vaan haluan tietää mitä kirjoja se luki jotta mäkin voin lukee ne. ne kirjeet,,,,, kojiman ääni joka on kuin 6B lyijykynä??? se loppu,,,, kun mä sain luettua tän mä vaan tuijotin kattoon ja mun silmät ei liikkunut. momose suututti mua NIIN paljon siinä yhdessä kohtaa oon hater. oikeesti mä en kestä tää oli niin liikuttava ja eyes ansaitsee niin paljon parempaa. itkin… ”i never had another friend like her. she was the only one.” ”i read your letters, like over and over. they always made me feel better. even though we didn’t meet or talk or whatever, i feel like i always knew how you were feeling.”
niiiiin kivuliasta ”i instinctively avoided mirrors in the bathroom and at home.. pretty soon i got used to living without mirrors.” “it matters that all the pain and all the sadness have meaning.” “because we’re always in pain we know exactly what it means to hurt somebody else.” “i guess i was crying because we had nowhere else to go, no choice but to keep living in in this world. crying because we had no other world to choose.”

tää kirja tuntui siltä että mua puukotettais.

mulle tuli niin paljon ongelmia. niin paljon kysymyksiä. mä oon niin surullinen enkä tuu ikinä unohtamaan niitä,,,,
muistan kuinka luin tätä yöllä ja jouduin välillä pitämään taukoja koska jotkut asiat oli niin ällöttävän tarkasti kuvattuja … tuli huono olo.
heaven on mun kirja vaan mun

wawwawaw se ei päässyt ikinä näkemään heavenia 💔💔💔 parkuin?? paruin??? ”why had they crashed in to our world?” MISSÄ KOJIMA?????

Content Warnings

icarusandthesun's review against another edition

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dark sad tense 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

4.0

"When they say that they're grossed out, they're lying. They're just scared. They're terrified."

an unsettling and incredibly smart take on the subjects of bullying, life and friendship. this book was so much more than just two teenagers trying to strike up a friendship in the face of all the bad things their lives have to offer. it's about insanity, about how blind and yet fully knowing people can be, about how the world works and about all that has meaning. it's about the two protagonists, victims of today's society, but it's also about their bullies and their truly human and inhuman views on the world.
also, the writing is so beautiful. i lost myself in the long dialogues and stunning prose for pages and pages on end, forgetting that i was reading in the first place. i think there's no greater compliment than that.
Heaven is about how life affects us all and about how we can and cannot choose the positions we stand in.
smart, horrifying, beautiful if a bit strange at times.

Content Warnings

tawny0wl's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

maryxdarko's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

neilazaara's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Let me start by saying that Mieko Kawakami is definitely an author I’ll be looking forward to read more of. 2 pages in and I have decided to add all of Mieko Kawakami translated work to my wishlist. The writing is just so compelling and engaging, no matter the story, I knew I would be intrigued! However, the story was way too graphic and violent to my liking. I had to put it down at times and look at some rainbows and puppies just to not feel like I want to jump off a bridge right that instant.

This novel is too short and too long at the same time. It is hard to really give a rating or even criticise this book as it is dealing with very serious and important topics, such as bullying, suicide and self-harm. Instead of a critical analysis, I’ll give my thoughts and feelings on it, as I feel like this book will affect each reader in a very different way.

First, the writing style is beautiful. However, some graphic depiction of gruesome events were too descriptive and realistic. It made me physically repulsed and anxious, and I wanted to put the book down and never come back to it. The ugliness of human behaviour in this book is just too much to bear.

Second, the characters were, to say the least, odd. They definitely painted a very interesting psychological portrait. An analysis of their psyche would be the most interesting part about reading this novel. However, there seemed to be a slight glorification of bullying and some kind of morality derived that can be seen through Kojima’s eyes which is deeply disturbing.

I could not really empathise with either of the bullied teenagers which might have been the author’s purpose. It seems like making the bullied infuriatingly powerless or actively demanding the bullying was supposed to make the reader almost start thinking like the bullies, which is definitely an uncomfortable thought. However, I was more annoyed by both the bullies and bullied, rather than reflecting on a deeper meaning and morality behind the act.

The protagonists have very skewed and pseudo-philosophical internal monologues and the fact that they are in middle school makes it a bit unrealistic and mostly laughable. They try to explain and understand concepts present in philosophy such as Nietzsche’s work (e.g. beyond good and evil or slave morality). This is highly unlikely debate to be had by such young teens and it seemed like at time the novel tried to carry more meaning than it had. The whole philosophical debate of the unimportance of moral compass made me very uneasy, in particular with such a lack of further discussion in the later parts of the book. Maybe if there were more conversations between the protagonists, some kind of debate could occur, but the internal monologue of a 14 year-old boy was a bit too poor to carry enough meaning.

Overall, I cannot say I have enjoyed reading Heaven as it was the most vile and hellish depiction of human behaviour and thoughts, I’ve read in a long while. It is very crude and raw, overly graphic, and that make it seem longer than necessary, while the shortness of the book makes it feel as if there wasn’t enough space to fully open a debate. I have very mixed feelings about this book and although I can definitively say that this book is wonderfully written and is a great piece of literature, I can’t shake off the thought that I really did not enjoy reading it.

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