Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

33 reviews

fkshg8465's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Admittedly, it’s a little too neatly written, but I loved every word of this book. The parallel stories, the ending, the reflection of our actual lives today, and the ever present Japanese them of ephemera. I’ll be thinking about this one a long time, which is a little ironic given its subject matter 😂 Would love to see this made into a movie. Since it seems a lot of these dystopian settings are on isolated islands, Hollywood cops probably reuse a set from a previous dystopian movie set on an island 🤣

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Infidelity, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

kittm's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, and Grief

Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Rape, Sexual violence, and Police brutality

apthompson's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

“My memories don’t feel as though they’ve been pulled up by the root. Even if they fade, something remains. Like tiny seeds that might germinate again if the rain falls. And even if a memory disappears completely, the heart retains something. A slight tremor or pain, some bit of joy, a tear.”

“His soul is too dense. If he comes out, he’ll dissolve into pieces, like a deep-sea fish pulled to the surface too quickly. I suppose my job is to go on holding him here at the bottom of the sea.”

“People—and I’m no exception—seem capable of forgetting almost anything, much as if our island were unable to float in anything but an expanse of totally empty sea.”

This novel, in its Orwellian decent, presents a surveillance-state dystopian island, where collective loss is enforced, and those who remember are systematically destroyed by The Memory Police. This a highly personal and profound type of apocalypse. The plot is reminiscent of The Diary of Anne Frank, and other real life histories of safe houses in the face or persecution; it concerns a woman’s efforts to hide one of the people who remembers, someone she cares for, in a purpose-built annex under her floorboards.

While it is, in many ways, set up like a typical dystopian novel that deftly illustrates the insidious, dehumanizing claw of totalitarianism, the true power of this novel is how it moves past the political implications of a dystopia to the very real horrors of forgetting and the destruction to society and the self this causes. There’s a quiet tension that stalks the pages of the novel. The fear, claustrophobia and struggle feel real. 

If you want to read a sci-fi book that explores the effects on the individual, then definitely pick this up.

rating: ★★★★

🗺️ Reading Around the World 2024: Japan 🇯🇵

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Violence, and Police brutality

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Blood, and Abandonment

Minor: Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Grief

mariavdl's review against another edition

challenging mysterious sad

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Emotional abuse

Minor: Death, Infidelity, Rape, and Terminal illness

avie_1's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

Minor: Death of parent

tashba's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Emotional abuse, Rape, and Kidnapping

katilh's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Blood, and Death of parent

talonsontypewriters's review

dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Police brutality, Kidnapping, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Infidelity, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Gore, Torture, Medical content, and Murder

Natural disasters (earthquake, tsunami). Enforced memory loss, unreality.

annorabrady's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

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

2.75

The book was an interesting premise but I had more questions than answers at the end. I expected some kind of explanation for what was happening, why the police were there enforcing it, why certain people were immune, etc. But instead it ended with just as much, if not less, knowledge of the events as it started. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Police brutality, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

ek4therin4h's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement

Moderate: Police brutality

Minor: Death, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, and Grief