Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

13 reviews

flitch's review against another edition

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3.5

I found this to be an enthralling read, but ultimately a let-down. Much of the early symbolism felt meaningless by the end of the book, and many of the intriguing plotlines were simply abandoned. For a novel with a strong female lead - who I loved! - the misogyny was overwhelming. The obsession with breasts really detracted from my ability to enjoy the story.

I loved the surreal qualities of the story, especially the interplay between the intentions of the characters and the nature of reality. The writing itself is beautiful and thought-provoking.

I absolutely hated
the introduction of underage rape as a plot element, made even worse by the bizarre supernatural explanation "absolving" the perpetrator. Almost DNF after a sympathetic character described an assault and the resulting infertility in graphic detail front of the victim. Entirely unnecessary and disgusting.



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bookwort's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

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bites_of_books's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

This one was a let down... 

Murakami can write really beautiful passages but this 1000+ book was just way too long and about 40% of it was just boring descriptions of mundane things. I do enjoy it when an author takes care to describe certain details but this was just too much.

We follow Aomame, a young woman who climbs down a staircase off a freeway and finds herself in a seemingly different world from her own. On the other hand we also follow Tengo, a young man who is tasked with ghostwriting a novel for a teenage girl by his editor. Aomame and Tengo live different lives and the first Book in this novel is spent trying to figure out how they fit together.

The themes explored in this book go from loneliness, religion, the power of literature, broken family dynamics, and more. Some of it did feel visceral and real, but others were just explored over repetitive and overdone writing. 

Then there are all the descriptions of women and anyone who isn't perfectly attractive in the author's eyes... it was just awful. The mysoginy was rampant throughout as well as deeply uncomfortable descriptions of certain intimate encounters that left me feeling like chucking the book in a corner and going for a walk. 

I do not recommend this novel, it's not magical realism in my eyes, it's fantasy/sci-fi. It's entirely way too long for what it is and it's not enjoyable in the least. 

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rafagina's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Slow, repetitive and predictable. On top of that, every female character is written either in cringe and belittling ways or downright horrendously misogynistic. Every single chapter there are gratuitous sexual descriptions and abusive episodes happening that add nothing to the story. If this is Murakami I don't know why people recommended it so much.

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mxpringle's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging reflective medium-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

4.0

This book was so so good in every way except one, and would have been 5 stars except for the sheer misogyny in describing every female character's breasts and
the horribly disturbing adult/minor relationship and blatant pedophilia

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delekelll's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I think the max I can give this book is 4 stars, because I enjoyed it and it was enthralling, but THE sex scene  and the gratuitous focus on every single female characters boobs threw me off. (hey murakami is that something you can speak to ????) I enjoyed the way that the secrets of the novel were given out very slowly, and I thought the ending was great. I think that now I've read both favorite books of someone who was not the nicest to me I understand more about them. Also, I feel like I should have taken longer to read this book. 1170 pages in 4 days is a lot. But, I felt the need to finish and move out of the cat town while the train still stopped for me. 

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frosted_croissant's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really enjoyed Murakami's writing but reading all three of the books in one big collection sometimes became a chore with his very descriptive writing style. I swear there were some facts that I read about 45 times throughout this book. Other than that this was a beautiful and TENSE story.

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stooby's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective 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? Yes

3.25


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ktnkrbl's review against another edition

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slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0


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chrisljm's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

1.0

I have so many things to say (all negative) but I’m gonna try my best to not make this too long lol. But this book was so goddamn long and boring. Starting this book was so hard, it took me about 3 weeks just to read 300~ pages and I’m usually a pretty fast reader. I had to switch to the audiobook because I just couldn’t get through the book otherwise. The audiobook definitely made the book easier to read but it also made it worse because it vocalized and brought to life these characters who were pretty insufferable in my opinion. 

No wonder this book was originally released in three parts because I genuinely don’t think there is any reason this book should’ve been 1500+ pages (ebook) long. It definitely could’ve been reduced a third of its length because there were parts that were so lengthy and repetitive, and just dragged on for seemingly forever. There was a whole ass scene where the narrator went over the complete instructions of how a pregnancy test worked, what the results shown meant, as well as the science behind it. I think if just the sentences that mention breasts were cut out, that alone could reduce the book by at least 1-2 chapters. (After a quick ctrl+f, breasts were mentioned an astounding 77 times)!

I’ve heard plenty of times before that Murakami is terrible at writing women, but he’s genuinely so terrible at it that I can’t even get mad. In my opinion he should just stop including female characters in his books completely. And if he wanted to have a romance arch, he should just consider having those characters be gay, because writing this sentence, “Aomame mourned the deaths of these two friends deeply. It saddened her to think that these women were forever gone from the world. And she mourned their lovely breasts—breasts that had vanished without a trace.” is insane to me. 

The book also contained so many content warnings. Literally any tw you can think of, it’s most likely included. Luckily, I’m not adverse to reading things that contain content warnings, for the most part, but the stuff in this book definitely made me uncomfortable. And if you’re someone who hates sexual assault being used as a plot device, definitely don’t read this. 

And since I’m on the topic of content warnings, the one that I sensed from the beginning was an adult minor relationship. I also just want to point out that an adult talking about a minor’s chest and ‘beautiful curves’ is already disgusting, but it doesn’t cancel out just because he throws in that there is no sexual meaning. However, out of all the foul parts I read (there were many) the one that was the most revolting to me was a scene where these two characters found themselves waking up naked together and there was a descriptive contrast made where one of the things being compared was referred to as ‘adult penis’. I’m sure you can guess what the opposite thing being described was. Having to read that full scene made me want to die. 

There were so many times throughout the book where I wanted to dnf, because I have truly never disliked a book more than this one. But above all, more than disliking this book, I am a hater, and  so I finished it even though I wanted to unalive myself the whole time, so that I could properly write this review. 

TLDR:
Badly written female characters
Too many mentions of breasts
CW: adult minor relationship, sexual assault/rape as a plot device, incesty (mommy issues), suicide, sex scenes
Unnecessary sex scenes
Long and boring

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