Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

19 reviews

lynxpardinus's review

emotional reflective sad

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Mental illness, Death, Transphobia, Hate crime, and Grief

Moderate: Cancer, Car accident, Deadnaming, Alcohol, Eating disorder, Violence, and Medical content

Minor: Stalking and Animal death

edgaranjapoe's review against another edition

emotional hopeful 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Deadnaming, and Mental illness

Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Cancer, Cursing, Murder, Animal death, Death of parent, Hate crime, Car accident, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Body shaming

spookily's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Transphobia

Moderate: Blood, Murder, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Outing, Hate crime, and Alcohol

Minor: Stalking, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Cancer, and Terminal illness

augustst's review against another edition

hopeful reflective fast-paced

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

2.0

transphobic and not deep enough for my liking. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia and Grief

Moderate: Hate crime, Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Stalking

nabila99's review

dark 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Transphobia, Deadnaming, and Mental illness

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Hate crime, Murder, and Car accident

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Body shaming, and Stalking

jazhandz's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, and Grief

Minor: Stalking, Deadnaming, and Hate crime

I would not call this book transphobic, I would call it a really loving and accepting book from the 1980s which means that some things aged oddly. Additionally, if your copy has the short story Moonlight Garden, additional CW for minor discussion of a car accident.

tej_reads's review

dark reflective sad medium-paced

3.25

This copy contained two short stories, "Kitchen" and "Moonlight Shadow". The stories explain loss in such an organic way, as they rely heavily on internal monologue. So you're immersed very quickly into the character's mental state, emotions and thoughts.

Eriko is trans, I thought they were kind and genuine but I did not like the way they were treated. The main character Mikage and Eriko's son Yoichi and on the surface accepting but consistently refer to Eriko as 'really a man' and that doesn't sit right with me. Granted Kitchen was written in the 1980s so the positive depiction of Eriko was progressive but I didn't like the comments by either characters.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Stalking and Suicide

rieviolet'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? No

2.5

I think that the book was really not for me. I did not get along with the writing style, it was too sentimental for me. 
Also, I did not connect with most of the characters, so many times while a character or another was going on and on with a monologue I found myself thinking "What is this person talking about? Should I care? I'm just bored".

I do not like the way transness was handled in the main story (and in the attached bonus short story), I should maybe be a little less harsh in my judgement given that the book was published in the 80s but, still, it was not pleasant to read, especially seeing how it ended.

Also, I listened to the audiobook and it made the reading experience even worse. I have to accept that audio format is not for me; I was already not much taken by the story, but by having to listen to it instead of focusing on a written page, my mind wandered time and time again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Grief, Murder, Hate crime, Deadnaming, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Outing, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Car accident, and Fatphobia

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

freckled_frog_boi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

1.75

I loved the writing style and how she described simple moments was absolutely delicious to read. However, as a trans person, the writing surrounding trans characters was horrible and openly transphobic. The characters love their friends who are trans women but out them, and call them men, make jokes about them being masculine, and are constantly reminding themselves and others that they are still men. The trans characters themselves are beautiful and I wished they were treated better. Also, there is a weird phenomenon where transness is treated like mental decline when faced with grief(?) which was weird and unsettling. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Deadnaming, Death of parent, Grief, Hate crime, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, and Transphobia

Moderate: Fatphobia, Body shaming, Injury/Injury detail, and Alcoholism

piapoyopi's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Transphobia, Grief, Hate crime, Murder, and Stalking

Moderate: Alcohol, Deadnaming, and Violence