Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

90 reviews

al_excellent's review against another edition

emotional hopeful slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Child abuse, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Sexual assault, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

faina_lea's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Medical content, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Drug abuse, Drug use, Self harm, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, and Alcohol

stormeno's review

emotional hopeful mysterious sad 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Drug abuse, Self harm, Grief, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Minor: Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Police brutality, and Mass/school shootings

ka_cam's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• 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

4.25

Weaving an omnicient Book narrator with a youthful young man who hears voices of objects and unseen entities (including the Book) as him and his mom grieves the loss of his father and finds his way through early adolescence. Some of the characters felt a bit flat/different from a teen boy narrator, but otherwise a solid read. The self proclaimed ‘big question’ is “what is real?” But themes of family, friendship, mental health, anti-capitalism, suffering, zen, substance use/abuse, and family/care.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Bullying, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Classism

saltysnails's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

5.0

This is one of my favorite books I have ever read. The twists and turns had me enthralled. Such a beautiful and real depiction of mental illness

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

orlagal's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

thursdd4y's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-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? It's complicated

2.5

The ending was lovely, but this book felt 200 pages too long and I really started to hate picking it up. Personally a lot of it could’ve been cut and made everything a lot more powerful and engaging, because at times it felt tedious.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

ckncert's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

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

3.25

 

 This book is the representation of if you were to open the suitcase of a frequent over-packer: so many clothes but they forgot to bring socks.

The Book of Form and Emptiness tells the story of a boy called Benny, whose life drastically changes after the traumatic death of his father and as he starts to hear objects talk. We follow his growth as he meets an eccentric Slovenian poet in a wheelchair and a mysterious artist who calls herself the Aleph. These new acquaintances validate his experiences and push him to explore his diversity, while the adults in his life (his mother, Annabelle, and his psychiatrist) are close-minded and clueless. However, Annabelle has her own issues to deal with: her immense grief and her hoarding problem, which almost gets them evicted altogether. Thus, the book follows these two characters as they try to collect the pieces of their broken lives through the help of people and books.

 The novel is built as a dialogue between the Book (Benny's book, the one which narrates his life) and Benny himself, as he sometimes interjects in the story to comment on what is going on. The aspect I liked most about this novel was the gorgeous writing. As a lover of literary fiction, the quality of the writing is essential to me. In this case, I found it compelling, profound, provocative, and very lyrical and poetic in some parts. The writing alone is why I stuck with this book till the end. 

However, because of the same writing, I developed a huge pet peeve as the book went on. I started to deeply despise Benny's chapters. Although they are often no longer than a page or so, they are written exactly as a 14-year-old boy would speak. The realism of the writing, with light cursing, informal turns of phrase, etc, made the sudden jump from the Book's prose to an annoying teenage boy's train of thought extremely jarring. Truly, Benny's comments weren't deep or insightful and I wish they would have added new information or have been cut in half. 

Finally, my biggest disappointment was the ending, which felt incredibly rushed. Throughout the book, Ruth Ozeki continues to add conflict and constantly ups the ante. However, despite having more than 500 pages to resolve most of the problems she has set up, she ends up making the issues magically disappear only in the last 20 pages.

Indeed, she even makes a character almost come back from the dead to end one of the conflicts. Benny can suddenly walk because he decided so and the voices are only background noise now, whereas they were still causing him problems a few pages before.

The reason the ending was so rushed and the characters didn't develop gradually was that Ozeki added too many elements, which suffocated the plot. The book is crammed with references to Buddhism, the Fluxus movement, Jazz, Walter Benjamin, Marie Kondo, and Japan, which makes it so that the plot is sacrificed. 

 Therefore, the enjoyment you will get out of this book depends on what you are looking for in a book. If you are in search of a well-told and developed story, you might need to read something else. However, it is undeniable that the book is a goldmine of references, most of which I was introduced to thanks to this book.

I would say it is a book worth reading anyway if I wasn't aware the length makes it very unapproachable for many readers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Self harm

Minor: Drug abuse

yellowbinge's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Self harm, and Sexual content

hduc's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Mass/school shootings, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail