Reviews with content warning for Excrement - Grotesque

So much of this was hard to read, which may be in part due to the translation. I think this book actually dragged on quite a bit, but it has made me think a lot about how women in Japanese society actually grow up. There is so much idolization of Japan’s culture, so much skimming over weird subtext in anime, blatant misogyny. While this is fiction, fiction holds a grain of truth. I think that’s what is unnerving about kirino’s writing. However wild she may dive, it never seems too wild. Graphic book, trigger warning for everything! I will also add that I did enjoy the emboldening of sex workers, even if they came from wildly different perspectives. Too often this world has been trained to think of them as as revolting whores or lustful accompaniments to men’s revulsion. But this paints women’s sexuality as their own, as sex work being a basis of freedom and accompaniment and success for others, truly, and points out how misogyny is known to the sex worker too, and the only difference between disgust with a sex worker’s johns and a sex worker’s own disgust, is that the johns can get away with killing them for it easier.

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directorpurry's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad 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

4.0

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sspaghettiboness's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad slow-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

4.5

First of all, this book is beautifully written. I don’t read female authors as often as I’d like, but I felt such a deep kinship with this book as it explored things like female rivalry, ageing, and a culture which commodifies sex and youth.

The diary sections are, by far, the most fun and interesting to read. Kirino does such a fantastic job of maintaining her high level writing while also giving each character a distinctiveness it’s impossible to doubt who is who.

Overall it was a great read, there are some slow patches which I found less than engaging, but this is a book worth sticking with! Very thought provoking about some heavy subject matter while unfolding at a true crime pace.

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