lipka's reviews
13 reviews

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

emotional sad tense medium-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

5.0

It is "a thematic response to The Secret History, and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell." 

I think my favorite was the fluttering. ᜋᜌ᜔ ᜉᜃ᜔ᜉᜃ᜔ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜊᜎᜒᜆ. It ends only as it ever could. The audiobook narration is beautiful. The protagonist's voice ages and breaks. Please send birds.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, Classism, Colonisation, and Sexism

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Slavery, Murder, Suicide, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, War, Child abuse, and Police brutality

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Drug use, Alcohol, Deportation, Religious bigotry, Confinement, Drug abuse, and Sexual harassment

In the second half of the book, sinophobic slurs are weaponized against characters, several times.

Anti-Japan: The Politics of Sentiment in Postcolonial East Asia by Leo T.S. Ching

emotional fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Classism, War, Colonisation, Sexual violence, and Slavery

Minor: Suicide

The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves by J.B. MacKinnon

adventurous informative medium-paced

4.0

Rainbow frogs and Animal Crossing. Suomi mental health and Gravity's Rainbow. Embracing the old night and someone who understands 侘び寂び。 The audiobook is a sweet and engaging narration, but I think reading it would be a different experience. Also, it really spent way too much time in Japan.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Animal cruelty, and Classism

Minor: Police brutality, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and War

文豪ストレイドッグス　太宰を拾った日 Side-A/Side-B Bungō Stray Dogs The Day I Picked Up Dazai Side-A/Side-B by Kafka Asagiri, Kafka Asagiri

dark emotional sad tense

5.0

This haunts. I put it down but it follows me everywhere. Please send flowers.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Torture

Moderate: Gun violence, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Alcohol

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

(Maybe one day I can finally put into words how this book makes me feel.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Grief

Moderate: Mental illness, Alcohol, and Child death

Minor: Abandonment, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Sexism, Sexual harassment, and War

やまあいの煙, The Smoke in the Mountain Valley by 重兼芳子 (Shigekane Yoshiko)

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Incest, Child death, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Body horror, Pregnancy, and Dysphoria

Dandelions by Yasunari Kawabata

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The bridge was hardly long enough to say you had crossed it. 

 

        This reads like a twilight. It fits that so much of the dialogue takes place in the dwindling light, then in darkness around the nine o'clock bell. And the book is just so: a precious few conversations about Ineko, Inako.

 

The dialogue is cradled in a holding pattern, or maybe circling a drain far in the middle of a manmade river. But it does spin. It does ripple, distorting and calming in turns the waves of memory, trauma, and responsibility. 

 

It's odd, maybe, but it's very Kawabata. The Dandelion is paused in the half-light, looking forward to dawn. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness

Minor: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Child death, War, Murder, Sexual content, Suicide, and Sexism

The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell by Mark Kurlansky

adventurous funny informative medium-paced

4.25

        A beat-by-beat timeline of New York's oysters, aquatic life, and culinary sway, with a bounty of relevant detours. This book nets everything—from the area's marine ecology, economics, and early environmentalism and feminism—to the history of its neighborhoods and street names. And oyster puns. The puns are a hull of a ride. Oh, swell. I can't hear myself over the clamor of bivalve jokes. Send help.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Classism, Colonisation, Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, and Slavery

Minor: Police brutality, Murder, Xenophobia, Fatphobia, Suicide, Racial slurs, Rape, and War

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

emotional 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? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity and Racism

Moderate: Classism, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Drug use, Xenophobia, Rape, Alcohol, Confinement, Animal death, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut

dark emotional informative tense fast-paced

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

        Un verdor terrible is... blue, black, and devastating. It's a strange moment: the reality and unreality folded together, nonlinear and noneuclidean. You really could blot out the sun with this book. Hold it just high enough—the shadow it casts is a dark, ancient thing.

        The chapters fling themselves in all directions at breakneck speed. A comet, and a coma. "What wind drags it off with the fury of an angel cast out from heaven, falling, and falling, and falling?" Only the tail end of it can tell.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Genocide, Suicide, Suicide attempt, War, Medical content, Sexual content, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Mental illness, Sexism, Dysphoria, Antisemitism, Drug use, and Murder

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Excrement, Rape, Vomit, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Pedophilia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Xenophobia