Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Ihmisen teot by Han Kang

74 reviews

jpcolkitt9190's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Rape

natncho's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

 After you died I couldn't hold a funeral, so my life became a funeral.

Glass is transparent, right? And fragile. That's the fundamental nature of glass. And that's why objects that are made of glass have to be handled with care. After all, if they end up smashed or cracked or chipped then they're good for nothing, right, you just have to chuck them away.
Before, we used to have a kind of glass that couldn't be broken. A truth so hard and clear it might as well have been made of glass. So when you think about it, it was only when we were shattered that we proved we had souls. That what we really were was humans made of glass.

Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel? Is the experience of cruelty the only thing we share as a species? Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves this single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, damages, slaughtered - is this the essential fate of humankind, one which history has confirmed as inevitable?

How had the seasons kept on turning for me, when time had stopped forever for him that May?"

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Suicide attempt, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Excrement, Vomit, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

Minor: Genocide

nico_lechat's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Police brutality, and War

emstermeegs's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Haunting and starkly written, darkly poetic. Pacing was all I wish had been better done towards the end, but this will stick with me for some time to come. Not a light story at all, but an important one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

jayisreading's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

I gave Deborah Smith some flak for her translation of The Vegetarian, and I admit that I entered Human Acts with some wariness (I mean, it didn’t help that the title alone is already a departure from the original title, which translates to The Boy Is Coming). However, unlike The Vegetarian, I found myself drawn into the quiet prose and translation of Human Acts. Perhaps it’s a result of how Kang decided to write the novel that it influenced Smith’s translation, but the writing felt more deliberate in getting the reader to slow down and think about the grief of each narrator across these chapters. As opposed to focusing on the Gwangju Uprising itself, Kang draws attention to the lasting grief and trauma of each narrator. In some ways, I have to admit that I think I actually prefer the title Smith decided to run with: Human Acts. Because, at its core, the novel reflects on the nature of humans and their actions, both violent and vulnerable.

I think some readers may find the different writing styles for each chapter a little off-putting (especially when it enters the second-person perspective), but I found it very effective in establishing the distinct voices of each narrator and how they were processing the shared connection they had across time. It was especially poignant to me that the novel ended with Kang herself as the narrator, who is from Gwangju.

This is definitely a novel I’d like to revisit in the future, perhaps in the original Korean, because I’m sure I will have missed some details. Overall, though, I found that this novel was utterly evocative and, at the time of reading this, timely, considering the ongoing protests and state violence that some protesters have faced.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Self harm and Alcohol

dreamingpages's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

This book is heartbreaking. Check the trigger warnings before reading.

I knew nothing about the Gwangju Uprising or the labor movement in South Korea before reading this book. It was really eye opening to see the hardships South Korea has faced in recent history. 

Each chapter of this book takes place from a different character's perspective, each loosely tied to a central character: a boy who was killed during the Uprising. The chapters expand out in time, from 1980 to 2013. Choosing to write the book in this way encapsulates how these events ripple through time and S. Korean society; trauma like this doesn't just go away.

Han Kang examines the sheer staggering human capacity for cruelty and questions the existence of the soul. I cried several times and felt this book in my core.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Police brutality, Grief, and Murder

emerentina's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

kaleidosaur's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

1.25

This was tough to get through. I don't know if I just lacked the historical context to fully understand this novel, but I found myself constantly zoning out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Murder, and War

georgw's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

2.0

It's a well-written novel but it's not my genre. I also think it's a bit weird to mix historical tales of horror and torture with ghost stories and spiritualism. I want to learn more about this event but with the mix of fact and fiction I'd do better just reading Wikipedia.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Mass/school shootings, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, and Sexual violence

Minor: Rape and Suicide