Reviews tagging 'Blood'

La Policía de la Memoria by Yōko Ogawa

29 reviews

literary_liv's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Xenophobia, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Death, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

mads_jpg's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A chilling story, but one that still has this warmth that made me so invested in these unnamed characters.

The disappearances reminded me of my fears from the climate crisis. We're constantly losing endangered species and seeing alarmist articles about how we might lose foods like coffee or chocolate. It feels like the earth is constantly running out of things. Like the Florence Welch lyric "and what if one day there is no such thing as snow". 

But that's just one interpretation of many you could have with this book. Its themes of loss, control, agency, and more are very impactful, and I think I'll remember this book for a long time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

Minor: Infidelity, Sexual content, and Suicide

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

miaaa_lenaaa's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

D: if i read this before i went to bed i think i would have gently cried myself to sleep

‘No matter how careful we are, we all leave behind little bits of ourselves as we go about our lives.’

‘Nothing remained on the hillside except things that were quietly awaiting their ruin.’

‘"But how can you hold something that has disappeared?"’

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Police brutality, and Grief

nikki_dun's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

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

2.0

Jesus Christ, that was f*cking bleak. What a depressing book.

This book was so eerie and gloomy, and there was no real strong direction that the plot or the characters were taking. Things were disappearing, yet no one was doing anything about it. There was no action, and the characters were so passive that there was nothing for the reader to look forward to because it was so clear that this book would end badly. The ending was abrupt and vague; there was no actual resolution or conclusion, and many things were left unanswered. It's a different type of storytelling than I'm used to, and honestly, I don't think I'm a fan of it.

To be fair though, the story within the story was interesting, and the writing was rather beautiful in places. However, this book just bummed me out, and it really wasn't the mood I needed to be in for the beginning of the year. I definitely need a pick-me-up after this…

2.5 ⭐️
p.s. I'll be billing the author for my therapy bills

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Blood, and Police brutality

Minor: Grief

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

taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Gore, Violence, and Blood

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

saoreads's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? Yes

3.5

It is so odd and strange; there were those warm moments, but it felt like something in you was depriving you with the way disappearances had occurred. It's as if they were living in a twisted social experiment setting. The things you could control were no longer there because the feeling was no longer there and the memory of how it worked was no longer there. It's distorting to think of a world like this one. Nevertheless, it was interesting to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment

risemini's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, Police brutality, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury