Scan barcode
aformeracceleratedreader's reviews
409 reviews
5.0
This is a difficult story to read from our main character, Melati, struggling with her mental health to her and people she knows suffering and struggling to survive a blood filled week of violence. Although not super graphic, this story illustrates the horrors of that week in Kuala Lumpur with some detail. Alkaf also illustrates OCD pretty well especially with how mental illness is viewed in many SE Asian communities.
Def read the author's trigger/content warnings at the beginning of the book or read reviews detailing trigger/content warnings because, although it is YA, there are a lot of heavy topics and scenes.
Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
4.0
3.0
Would be open to reading more from this author but I won't be going out of my way or tracking any new release.
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
3.25
Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail
3.0
2.5
If you dont know about the Japanese occupation in various countries, this could be eye opening/informative while including characters that you either love or hate.
Personally as someone who has family affected by the Japanese occupation, I already knew a lot of the negatives of Japan during that time and thought some parts/descriptions were gratuitious.
There were also a lot of characters to keep track of and some parts of many of their stories felt too rushed because there were so many. I felt that we didn't get enough time with one tragedy before immediately moving on to another (which I understand that in life, especially during war and immediately after, tragedies can come right after another without giving the sufferers enough time to even process it but as a reader, it would've been nice to sit with certain things longer than a brief 2 sentences and a brief few sentences afterwards at the end. So I would've preferred cutting down on characters and expanding on certain tragedies and how the characters cope/lived with it).
Read content warnings because there is a lot.
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Hate crime, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
2.5
Did not finish book. Stopped at 10%.
3.5
Overall I liked the writing and the characters and the premise. I thought the ending was pretty decent too at the very least it was satisfying enough. I think some of the more sinister feelings/thoughts could have been more amped up especially when it was talking negatively about the rich and the mystery of Jonathan's illness. I think the realization of what his illness was was a bit rushed feeling. I wish there was more focus also on Lena's knowledge/execution of plant knowledge.
I would be willing to check out more from this author in the future even though I didn't love this.
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
4.0
Overall was okay with the ending. Wrapped nicely enough for me where it didn't feel like it left me hanging.
Def check trigger/content warnings.
Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual content