Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Der Liebhaber by Kan Takahama

21 reviews

elliebasta's review against another edition

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

3.25

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mcribsy13's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Her writing is like good black and white film. Silver and fluttering it shows the death of childhood in its complicated simplicity. Destruction shouldnt feel so effortless.
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onceandfuturereads's review against another edition

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

5.0

This is a book more about the mother than the lover. Much like the memoir “The Kiss,” one of my favorites. I loved it.
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myopicmars's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective

3.0

difficult to read, but written beautifully. 
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beautyandterror's review against another edition

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fast-paced

2.0

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annieogg's review against another edition

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

5.0

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sleepylit's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Overall, I enjoyed the story being told, but the way it was written became a bit confusing to me. There were also points that I felt were not needed in relation to the bigger picture of the relationship between the girl and the man. The details about her mother and brothers were not important to understand the relationship, but I do concur it was needed to be able to assess the economic differences. 
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stryfe's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door.

this is a tough read. it's autobiographical and the perspective of the protagonist has so many different layers to it—her position as a white colonizer of Vietnam and how that is acknowledged by her, her position as an abused child seeking  solace for her mentally ill mother, the "relationship" with her "lover" who is a man of twice her age, making him also her rapist—that help to paint a vivid picture of moments in her life through her memory of them.

the narrative style accepts the fallibility of human memory and uses it as a tool, allowing the narrator to jump back and forth through the timeline of her own life when she recollects something she hadn't before. duras's view of the world at age 15 bleeds into her world at the time of writing and vice versa, almost creating a tapestry out of all the crossovers.

someone with more education on the subject has most definitely written a better analysis of the very serious themes of race in this novel, so i'm going to read those rather than try to describe them, but definitely mind the content warnings. this is a story about white french colonizers. the protagonist is one of them, she is 15 years old. she has an extended "relationship" with a 27 year-old man, he is a predator, and the story includes her family's and the general colonies's anti-Chinese prejudice impacting their interactions and the protagonist's way of thinking. this book is often called an erotic novel which strikes me as extremely strange; the novel discusses sex, yes, but sex between a child and an adult should never have been referred to as erotic, i know why it was before, but it definitely should not be in 2023.
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elliotlea's review against another edition

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

4.0

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treehouselibrary'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? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

a cyclical, looping scrapbook of the morbidity of childhood desires
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