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booksandboba's reviews
20 reviews
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Did not finish book. Stopped at 58%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 46%.
3.0
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Body shaming and Alcohol
Minor: Lesbophobia and Homophobia
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Body shaming, Vomit, Cancer, Eating disorder, and Sexual content
Moderate: Racial slurs, Mental illness, Racism, Child death, Drug use, Medical content, Cursing, and Infidelity
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
When I first read it, I loved it, loved the writing style and character development (it was my first or one of my first encounters with writing like this), really related to descriptions of anxiety and depression, considered it my favorite book. Read it a second time and started forming doubts, particularly with noticing issues of classism and racism. Read it a third time, this time annotating heavily for themes present throughout the book (question of fate vs free will, good vs bad and moral responsibility, depression and grief vs hope, art and its beauty and importance, friendship and love, impermanence vs permanence, time, life and death) and enjoyed doing that, but in doing so realized that the book really could have been edited better. I found the ending to be sloppy and not satisfying. And the way that blatant racism is used in the book (equating East Asian and especially Chinese culture and objects with cheapness) is just appalling.
And apparently it took 10 years or more to write this book, which either means that those choices were deliberate and well-thought out, choosing to only have people of color represented in minor roles mostly as working class serving the white upper class, choosing to use racist notions to make character points, or she somehow in all that time failed to consider these choices — why she might be making them, what they mean, what sort of impact they would have — despite the clear time and attention to detail given to making this book.
Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Blood, Death of parent, Mental illness, Murder, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Gun violence
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Car accident, Classism, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, and Homophobia
Minor: Pregnancy
Did not finish book. Stopped at 21%.
4.0
Graphic: Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Abandonment, Mental illness, and Chronic illness
Minor: Sexual assault, Excrement, and Medical content
4.5
Graphic: Grief, Child death, War, Pregnancy, Death, Genocide, and Mental illness
Moderate: Blood, Colonisation, Classism, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Racial slurs, Racism, and Physical abuse
Minor: Alcohol
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Abandonment, Colonisation, Racial slurs, and Racism
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail