v1rgo's reviews
328 reviews

permission/forgiveness was pretty cool. i also thought long hair in the attic was sort of fun. i remember being lukewarm on flesh colored horror (have read that story before) and i think now i know why. i think some of ito's other stories like layers of fear have explored what was being explored in it in a more fun way. headless statues was like creepy fun but it was sorta stupid. same for the other stories i haven't mentioned. overall, i didn't super like this collection. i guess the body horror was pretty cool, so maybe i'll reread, so i don't know. i hadn't read permission/forgiveness before, and i really enjoyed it, so i'm grateful for that at the very least.

very hit or miss for me. ofc glyceride is my favorite ito in the whole wide world, and i really liked dead man calling too! found a new favorite, i think! :,) i had some mixed feelings on the earthbound and way more mixed feelings on secret of the haunted house but they were pretty fun! the dark drinks blood was probably my least favorite.. i didn't hate it or any of the other stories in this, but i was sorta like. ehhh. pretty fun collection!!! thank you my lovely friend mister ito

not feeling it. i was reading this while i had food poisoning so maybe that's why

yeah okay this was pretty crazy. probs my favorite of the series. fun to see all of the like things that were being set up in the prior books wrt lore and like themes of imperialism and cruelty coming together

note to start off: there is a MAJOR tw for pedophilia! not sure why it isn't put higher by reviews here!!!
hm. idk whether to rate this one. i just wasn't a fan of the writing style. i think it may have soured the book for me. i usually at least like lacour so i was kinda surprised. the romance also wasn't very compelling, but it wasn't like, a major part of the book so whatever. i wish i had a better sense of the actual personalities of the two protagonists. also, some parts of this made me roll my eyes. like i'm pretty sure every gay woman who likes literature has heard of passing (the book)..... not super a fan of those sorts of references for reasons like that. uhhh that is personal preference too tho... maybe this just wasn't my thing. kinda reminded me of honey girl which was also pretty cheesy. i liked that one more i think. will mayb think about this one more and modify my review

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!!
VERY VERY likely my favorite of this year!! what a fucking masterpiece. it  took me a while to like actually mark it read here because i kept reading it over and over again.. i didn't wanna let it go 😭😭 i badly need a copy for myself. umm i like every poem here LOL.. i have a list in my notes app of poems i liked because i was writing them down during my first reread but i stopped a few pages in because i was writing down nearly every one!! shokushu goukan for the cyborg soul is the one that made me go :o the most the first time? but that's not a good marker of which one i LIKED the most.. what an incredible group of poems man. cannot recommend this book enough. franny choi you are a genius. also ERM again idk how to rate poetry but... Will let my brain control me just this once because WOW.

note to start off: MAJOR tw for on page sexual assault and torture!!! it is very very graphic and there are multiple scenes 

definitely one of my favorites from this year! such a cool book. i am sort of ? on putting it in my favorites of 2022 list just because i didn't have that wow moment directly after finishing, but after reading more about the book and the way the crime genre has functioned as social criticism in japan, i appreciate it a lot more. (i did enjoy this book a lot more than real world, but after reading more about real world, i gained a new appreciation for it as well.)

kirino's descriptions of setting are incredibly lush!! such joys to read. there are very many ways to read this book, but the most interesting analysis i saw specifically looked at how kirino uses setting and the idea of 'home' (and the feeling of safety that is attached to it) to show how the main characters spend the book searching for a space that their work (domestic, factory, etc.) is not disregarded in. (this isn't just limited to the main four who are lower class women, 3/4 who are mothers / middle aged. through other characters, kirino also looks at racism, capitalism, and fetishization in japan.) there are obviously very very many aspects to this and i'm not summarizing very well! such a cool read :o left me with SO many things to think about. i'd talk about it more, but i think i can go on for a long time now. 

disappointing. i understand that this is a debut, but it was still really bad. will update with an actual review soon hopefully. on another note, idk how categories are determined on here but this book is very much gay 😭

edit: okay, naturally, i forgot to write a review and have forgotten a lot of this book. however, i do still remember some of the criticisms i had with it. to start off, i felt the writing style was quite dull. like, i didn't realize it before this book, but there very much is a Literary Fiction Writing Style that's in right now. it was probably super prevalent in this because it's a debut, but nevertheless, it ... sucked to read LMFAO. like, the style was.. it's like it was trying to be cavalier and blase, but you could tell exactly why each individual sentence was written. it made me roll my eyes a bit. on a similar note, none of the characters felt truly developed. there was a very clear logic behind each of their actions. it's like the author made a diagram of each and added bullet points about each of their characteristics and like, drew arrows connecting EVERY single plot point with a certain characteristic or trauma. like, the author wasn't using therapyspeak in the book itself, but i can imagine them being like okay, this character's grief has resulted in [THIS CHARACTERISTIC] and is stressing them out until they do [THIS THING]. like, i could literally picture the mind map the author must've used. it's a shame because i heard good things about this!!! but it was so, so, so disappointing. i don't think i'm going to read new releases for a while because if i read another book with this writing style anytime soon i think i'll actually cry

what a lovely book. it made me feel so, so warm. i also really enjoyed reading about each contributor's experiences. i think my favorite pieces were "in the life", "tomatoes", "cactus woman", "the garden paths of a brooklyn kid", "out on a limb with pennie rose", "gaining ground", "the persistence of roots/a profusion of freesia", "you love your roses (more than you love me)", "peas", and "my corn". cannot express how happy this one made me. i love being a lesbian <3