Reviews with content warning for Self harm - Ruth & Pen

Kanske en bok som man uppskattat om man var yngre än mig. Tyckte aldrig riktigt att jag blev särskilt intresserad av karaktärerna, och det mesta berördes bara ytligt; har svårt för när ”problem”(t.ex självskadebeteende, att hitta sin sexualitet) nämns på ett sätt som känns lite ”bara för att”, och det har författaren en tendens att göra i den här boken.

Jag kan inte säga särskilt mycket om representationen i boken då jag själv inte tillhör de aktuella grupperna, men vissa situationer beskrevs lite ”meh” även där kan jag tycka.

Gillar däremot det som sagts innan, att boken utspelar sig under en enda dag!

Summa summarum hade jag tyvärr ganska tråkigt när jag läste boken.

Content Warnings

teigancollins's review against another edition

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challenging emotional 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

4.75

Content Warnings

_inge's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.5

I really didn’t like the writing style at all. Every sentence stretches out unnecessarily long, and uses so many commas, that it took me a while to get into the ‘rhythm’ of this book. I considered putting it down as the commas really annoyed me, but because the characters seemed interesting I decided to stick with it.

I found Pen particularly interesting to read about. She’s an autistic girl whom Pine has clearly researched well. Sometimes I was on the verge of cringing over an autistic trait but that was then followed up by an explanation (for example: Pen liked maths, but that part was immediately followed by a statement saying she wasn’t an expert at it like the stereotype suggests).

I don’t really get what happened to her during the protest though, it wasn’t a meltdown or a shutdown but she became unwell and fainted? I also wondered how she managed to be that severely overwhelmed, but then still managed to go to a pub, to speak there, to then attend a concert, and finally managing to safely get the bus back home. If your brain is oversimulated it would genuinely struggle to do these things, but Pen seemed to still have energy somehow. Given this book spans a day I guess it wouldn’t have worked to send Pen home early to relax.

Ruth wasn’t particularly likeable, but that made her very realistic. Her story contained quite a lot of graphic detail on miscarriage, so that’s definitely something to be wary of before reading. Her story only kicks off maybe halfway through this book though, so for the most part I wasn’t really sure why it was relevant to read about a therapist having sessions and reflecting on her marriage.

I found it a bit confusing that perspectives from other characters sometimes popped up too. The book (obviously) focuses on Ruth & Pen, but we’d sometimes hear from Pen’s mum or Ruth’s husband. These pieces were really good and did help to see the main characters from another point of view, but they did take me out of the pace of reading this.

I’m glad I went with my instinct and continued to read this, despite the writing style ánd the story needing some time to settle in.

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