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A review by st0bbit
Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
Appreciated the references to mythology and local terms used, especially the fact that this is the first book I've read by an Indonesian author – the history, folklore and culture of Indonesia genuinely shines through here and feels compelling to me.
However, this book seemed to rely on shock factor to draw readers in, and I only got increasingly uncomfortable as the story went on. I've read a few other reviews where they noted that this book was a critique behind Indonesia's misogynistic and sexist colonial history, but that was never very clear to me, I guess. I'm not familiar with this author's work and know nothing about him/her, so I'll do more research about that to see what this book was supposed to be, exactly. People are reduced to animals who crave sexual gratification, women are sexualised and written from a very heterosexual male gaze perspective, and I'm not hooked onto the book enough to want to read the whole thing to the end when I could google it. Would rate this 2 stars if I could.
However, this book seemed to rely on shock factor to draw readers in, and I only got increasingly uncomfortable as the story went on. I've read a few other reviews where they noted that this book was a critique behind Indonesia's misogynistic and sexist colonial history, but that was never very clear to me, I guess. I'm not familiar with this author's work and know nothing about him/her, so I'll do more research about that to see what this book was supposed to be, exactly. People are reduced to animals who crave sexual gratification, women are sexualised and written from a very heterosexual male gaze perspective, and I'm not hooked onto the book enough to want to read the whole thing to the end when I could google it. Would rate this 2 stars if I could.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Incest, Infidelity, Murder, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Violence