cakrawala's reviews
30 reviews

Sula by Toni Morrison

dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-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

3.5

the book is written beautifully and natural. it makes us realize that the world is not only black and white but there is also shades of grey. a gap where we couldn't fully blame it all to one person. sometimes, we shouldn't proudly said that we're the good ones, and then framing other person as the bad guy. 

to be honest, at first, i was confused and couldn't understand what is it about. until i tried to look up for some summaries in some chapters, i started got it. once you realize the point of the book, your heart dropped and barely recover.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

5.0

The story is so good and I got chills when I read the ending. I never thought it would be like that, I don't even have any idea what would it be. It turns out to be so GREAT. You could feel the emotion and the situation, it feels like you're the one who made the deals. The way of storytelling is pretty interesting for me. How the author could go back and forth effortlessly without making the reader confused. It took me almost 2 week to finished this book, but it's all wroth it.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

adventurous emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.0

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

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

4.0

a lighthearted story about professor, the housekeeper, and her son. the book has a simple storyline you could catch up and understand. the chemistry between character also build perfectly and you could feel the love between them eventhough its never written "i love you" there.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

4.0

I always love a heartwarming short story. A very fast paced book, which I usually prefer but this one is 'too fast' for me and thar's why I reduce the stars I gave. I think there would be many ways to improve the storyline.

I love this book because at some point, I could relate to the story. The book is probably good for someone who is still mourning after losing someone from a relationship. It might take a long journey to find what you actually wants in your life, and that's what this book trying to say.

The plot is easy to understand because there are only few characters and the relations between each others is not complicated. The storyline is also going forward, not back and forth.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Sometimes I get lost when I read the detailed description about emotion of the characters. It could be really long and implicit so you need to think about it at least twice until you get the real meaning. but the storyline is pretty interesting eventhough you need to be extremely attached to the main character so you could understand why things happened (yet it's still complicated)

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

dark sad fast-paced

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

2.5

this book is so weird and absurd. the characters really irritating me especially shihara. he needs to shut up because he's just a dumb mutt trying to mansplain other people. he's lunatic. but at some points, this book had a great proof about how stigma in society grows. the reality just put it down here and it's the sucks truth.

The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

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

5.0

this book is such a masterpiece. a great GREAT book. it's really mesmerizing how you could connect the dots one by one following the flow of the stories. we can put all of the pieces of puzzles together when the book ended. Every characters have great story and thoughts. I still wonder how the writer could make everything connected when they are all starts from small pieces like puzzle. i didn't give 5 because it's pretty hard for me to keep up with the timeline, it's pretty complicated. but the rest of it was great. such a heartwarming book that teached us many lessons.

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

dark emotional sad 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

2.0

i don't even know what to say about this book. it's really disturbing and heartbreaking. the graphic description of bullying made me took a lot of pauses when i read this book. definitely would never read this again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Bullying, and Sexual harassment