b0r3d_2710_'s reviews
67 reviews

Alright, first of all, I'm not a romance reader and I usually end up disliking or loathing all the popular romance books that everyone on the internet hypes so much but this one was different and I'm so glad that I picked it up.

I was in a reading slump for weeks tbh, I started a lot of books but just couldn't finish them so I looked up about books that would pull me out of the slump and this one was recommended quite a few times. Well, I did finish this one in a day so I must say that it worked.

This book is about Elizabeth (Liz) Buxbaum who's a senior in high school and a typical delusional teenager, trying to make her childhood crush fall in love with her to experience her dreamy fanatasized prom that was around the corner. For this mission, she takes the help of her next-door-nemesis (puh-leaze) Wesley Bennett, who's been her enemy ever since she learned how to walk, at the cost of giving him the Spot .

The writing style was simple and the plot was fast-paced. The story itself was quite simple with highschool dramas. It had the cliché love story of teenagers including prom, miscommunications and drama that you would find in every other highschool romance but I actually quite enjoyed this book. It was really cute and light-hearted and had a good time reading it as it pulled me out of my reading slump but there wasn't anything that special in there for it to be my favourite book ever.

I really liked all the cute rom-com references and quotes from the movies at the beginning of every chapter even though I haven't seen most of them but now I'm willing to watch them for fun. Also the fact that Liz was such a melophile resonated with me.

I slowly set down the phone on my nightstand. Um… I was pretty sure I was excited. But what did it mean? Was I back in the game? I wasn’t sure, but he’d cared enough to get my number—I was guessing from Wes—and to personally text and see how I was feeling. So even though it’d been awkward, it was still a good sign, right?

God, this girl is so delusional.

Talking about the characters, Liz is a hopeless romantic and wants the high school love experience inspired by all those rom-coms that she used to watch with her mother and of course that experience happened not in the way that she had expected. She had romanticised her life a lot as a result of watching all those iconic rom-coms. She was fantasizing about the Mr Right and having movie moments with songs playing in the background and haha that's how a typical teenage girl behaves. Inspite of all that, I could not relate with her and had moments where I just couldn't understand how exactly did her mind work. It did feel like she was an actual person who was dealing with the grief of her mother, boy problems and well life in general but I found her trying to be too quirky or "not like other girls" at times. I have nothing against such characters but in my opinion, we can write about these characters and their 'uniqueness' without comparing them to the typical girly girls characters in the story at every possible moment.

Another thing that put me off in this novel was how convenient and easy it was for Liz to lie. I get lying about certain small things but why lie about the party and stuff? Also ditching your friend's idea of shopping while going out with another guy for shopping? If I was in Joss's shoes, I would not have let her go that easily.

Now, Wesley Bennett, THE guy!

“No, it doesn’t; don’t listen to them.” Wes lifted my chin in his thumb and forefinger, and his eyes dropped down to my covered nose. “Your nose is just a tiny bit swollen.”

My god, he's so cute and considerate, ahhh.

He didn’t answer, and when I opened my eyes, he was watching me. He swallowed and said, “Juxtaposition for sure.”

These small details!!

Wes Bennett fits the female gaze perfectly. He is the standard. Tbh, he's a lot closer to my type irl. He's a real gentleman who knows chivalry. There are a lot of small things thrown here and there that just shows how caring and gentle of a person he is. He's so attentive, warming, funny and charming, a green flag for real. His attention to all the little things about her, supporting Liz at every point, letting her know when she was at fault and always cheering her up when she's having a bad day, that sounds like a ideal book boyfriend for me to swoon over. He's like the ideal guy that you want, even as a friend, like he makes fun of you, pulls pranks on you and annoys you but when the situation is serious for you to count on him, you know that he's a ride or die.

“She’s not you.”
“What?”
“She. Isn’t. You.”

Yeah, just get me someone like him asap.

Michael was a good character that served as a nice angle in the supposed love triangle which wasn't quite the love triangle from the very start. Joss seemed one dimensional especially since she forgave Liz so easily when that girl had literally lied to her several times. I liked Helena a lot, poor lady had to bear the hate for something that wasn't even her fault. She seemed more like a friend rather than a motherly figure, I would love to have a friend like her IRL.

And then, as if struck by lightning, Wes inhaled and his hands tightened on the sides of my face. He was kissing me back. I was kissing Wes Bennett, and he was kissing me. It went from breathily timid to scalding hot in an instant. He angled his head and kissed me the way Wes was supposed to kiss, wild and sweet and entirely overconfident all at the same time. He knew exactly what he was doing as his big hands slid into my hair, but it was the shudder in his breath and the slight tremor in his touch that I drew on. The fact that he felt as out of control as I felt.

I SQUEALED SO FUCKING HARD!

The romance was so cute, I was rooting for the main characters to get together since the very start. The cute sarcastic banters, Wes being obsessed with her all along, the care and comfort, the late night phone calls, the protectiveness, the Secret Area, the almost kiss during the movie, the realisation, the confession and THE FIRST KISS! I was swooning all along these scenes.

“She is gorgeous.” He flicked ash off the end of his cigar and gave me the kind of eye contact that forced you to listen. “But, like, what does that mean, really? Unless my goal is just to sit and stare at her like someone would stare at an ocean or a mountain range, pretty is just a visual.”

I like that this book actually shows that being hot is just not everything, for example, we see how Wes was just an usual annoying neighbour for Liz but with time when she started to find out how nice and caring of a person Wes was, she started sensing his attractiveness, his scent, his muscles, his face, etc. and suddenly he became the hottest person ever for her. Personality makes the physical attractiveness and I live by that.

And yeah, I wasn't a fan of the smoking scene for obvious reasons, but it's just my problem and I know that everyone has different opinions and icks.

If you're someone who loves rom-coms and music and a cute YA highschool love story that I'd say that this book would be perfect for you. And, of course I'll be reading all the other bonus chapters as well.

Twisted Love by Ana Huang

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fast-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

1.25

I was okay until this motherfucker sang.

He has a heart of ice...but for her, he'd burn the world.

Stop. Why did I cringe from the first line itself?

I wanted to give it more than 1 star but then giving it 2 stars felt too generous to my hater brain so I just shrugged the thought away and proceeded with 1, and I clearly have better judgement than Ava Chen.

This book is about Alex, a grumpy morally-grey alphahole with a cursed past and Ava, a 'sunshine' sweet girl with her broken past that she could not remember. Ava's brother was really protective of her ever since 'the Incident' happened and when he needed to go to Central America for volunteering, he asked his bestfriend Alex to look after his sister in his absence. But now that Alex had shifted in Josh's apartment, next door to Ava's house, how was Ava gonna survive dealing with that grumpy scary man?

Everyone who told me that it was a good book deserves jailtime. To be fair, I knew I wouldn’t like it but being the justified hater I am, I needed valid arguments to hate upon and I successfully collected them. This book was just bad. It's fast paced with a lot of time jumps which were annoying because it felt like the author had just written random 'imagines' for her otp which was not fun to read. The writing style wasn't that bad but it wasn't any good either. I was cringing at most of the dialogues in the story. The story is told with a lot of flashbacks in between to show Alex's and Ava's memories which I somehow found annoying to read. No hate towards the unlucky kid but damn you guys irritated me as fuck.

This book was really predictable, really. It's okay, some people are into that. I'm not.
I've seen many people praising the 'thriller' part of this story so I think I need to mention that it was nothing extraordinary. The parents died, like every other character's backstory and the girl had drowned so she was aquaphobic when suddenly she started remembering that oh maybe her mother might not have pushed her and wow as if it was so hard to guess from the weird behaviour of her father that he had intended to kill her instead of her mother. Also, don't tell me that no one knew that Ivan was the one who actually murdered Alex's family. Bitch please, I saw it coming from miles away and this isn’t even impressive to be called a flex because when you're an avid reader, you learn to read between the lines.
The plot idea was good and had potential but the execution is cringy and cartoonish. Was that whole confession scene from Michael Chen supposed to be, idk terrifying? The man was saying dialogues like a cliché villain from 80s. And Ivan was so underwhelming even though he was supposed to be this grandmaster behind the scenes.

Now, moving onto the characters of the story…

Alex Volkov was rich and 'sexy' and a really fucking boring emo boy. You're telling me that man has an IQ of 160, has Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, invented a new financial modeling software before turning 14 and it made him a multimillionaire before he could even vote, completed the Thayer's five-year joint undegrad/MBA program in three years and was the COO of one of the most successful real estate development companies in the country at 26? Naw, you gotta be kidding.
That man also knows Krav Maga, what the fuck? Apparently this man has mysterious connections that he would use the for the rest of the book to accomplish whatever it was that he wanted to do at any point in the plot or just threatening someone to give in. Also, people feared him at the age of 11 because his parents were killed and he swore revenge? Yeah kid, shut up and do your Maths homework.

Fact of the day according to Mr Alex I'll-murder-you-and-your-entire-family Volkov: Biological reactions can be mastered. Yeah, let's see how you master your diarrhea Mr Volkov. Oh wait, you'll probably never have one because you eat nothing other than vaginas anyways.

I could imagine myself lifting that shirt, tugging her bra aside with my teeth, and closing my mouth around those sweet, hardened peaks—

I know that some people find this hot and all but if a man is talking/thinking about me like that, I'd be creeped out. How is that hot? And that's also why I don't like reading the pov of alpha males in romance novels. This man was a creepy horndog who apparently fucked like a pornstar because ofc this man was perfect but then slut-shamed every man on the planet to have sexual thoughts in their minds. This man changed from 'The kiss was a mistake' to 'All that matters is I’m only sleeping with one woman from now on' real quick huh.

Okay, deleting the photos from the camera was a jerk move. Actually that whole bursting inside the room scene was cringy. He had no right to do that. What if they actually were having sex? That would have been so awkward and embarrassing for Ava. IQ of 160 and still doesn't know basic decency. And why the fuck are you freaking out over a 22 year old woman leaving her house?

“The congressman looks interested. Why don’t you go say hi?” Red tinted her creamy skin.
“I’m not a prostitute,” Madeline hissed. “You can’t pimp me out to another man when you’re done with me. And we are not done. Not until I say so. I’m Madeline fucking Hauss.”

Okay, I don't care whatever she did or however she was but calling a woman a slut jusr because she didn't want to 'breakup' was assholery and I'm mentioning that because people seemed to be in love with this man, at least on booktok and bookstagram. People, what is wrong with your taste?

“That’s where you’re wrong. I fucked up. Massively. But I will earn your forgiveness one day, and you are mine. Always. No matter how much time or distance separate us.”

IQ of 160 and still don't know how to apologize. Ava should have kicked his ass right there and then.

Now, I didn't hate Ava but I also didn't like her per se. She was just eh and well yeah, a forgettable character. I wouldn’t call her 'naïve for being too trusting', she was stupid. Just call her an idiot because that's what she was.

"I didn’t respond, because how was I supposed to tell the man determined to save me that I didn’t want to be saved?"

And then she complains about how everyone takes advantage of her.

The rest of the characters weren't interesting enough. Let me first put my mind around the fact that Bridget was a fucking princess of a country in Europe who was attending fests and parties with her friends in America? Haha yeah.
I felt some kinship with Jules. Yes I might not be the human version of Jessica Rabbit but it was hilarious how the 'fun' and 'fucked-up' ideas she came up with all throughout the novel were something that I have said at least once to my friends. If I'm comparing myself with Jules on the basis of her idea of having fun (minus the sexual things please) and encouraging others to participate in troublesome things, then my friends would definitely agree to the statement.
BUT!
I didn't like that stupid Operation Emotion phase, it was so dumb. I've mentioned that I had those same ideas as Jules at least once in my life but this stupid mission was just idiotic to the core. I've had these kind of ideas when I was a middle schooler, these ladies were full grown women.

Now let's talk about the main part of the story: the Romance.
First of all, I hate the nicknames these fictional men give their gf in romance novels. I hate it oh my god. How tf is being called 'sunshine' all the time not cringy for you?
The build up wasn't even there. It was insta-love and I couldn’t hate it less. Enemies to lovers huh? They were 'enemies' for three chapters and then suddenly they were stupid horndogs for each other. It was literally a flip of a switch when they suddenly started hugging and kissing in public and doing the usual couple things. They didn't even have a proper conversation about it.

She was mine. She just didn’t know it yet. I hadn’t known it myself until I saw her in Colton’s arms and every instinct raged at me to tear her away. To claim what belonged to me.

I'm sorry, didn't you meet her like a week ago? Did this man go from not caring about this girl at all to calling her 'mine' and shit just because he saw her wet breasts?

“I will destroy him.” Alex’s words sliced through the air like lethal blades of ice. Goosebumps blossomed on my skin and I shivered, my teeth chattering from the cold. “Everything he has ever touched, everyone he has ever loved. I will ruin them until they’re nothing more than a pile of ashes at your feet."

Yeah, I would be horrified by such a man by my side, even if he was spouting all that against my ex. These alphaholes need to chill. Speaking of which…

The relationship was so romanticised, it's bizarre. Alex literally liked to kill people, he was literally thinking of killing people in every single interaction he had with them and miss ma'am had hearty eyes for him. Literally half of what he said were just murder threats and the rest were just him being over possessive with Ava and all that dirty shit. In London, when he was supposed to apologize to Ava, he saw Jake and got aggressive like usual and started threatening him and then with a snap, he started being lovey-dovey with her and she immediately forgave him. She had mentioned that Jake was a great friend of hers but she didn't even get mad when that alphahole threatened to kill her said friend? He was legit a sociopath. No, you can’t romanticise someone like that and call the character 'morally-grey' as justification. In real world, he's a criminal not a morally-grey character who's hot and sexy and just the perfect human with IQ of 160. Hell he even killed his uncle in front of her and how do you get back together with someone like that? Which brings me to the question, was Ava actually a 'bright sunshine sweet' girl? She didn't breakup from him because he was a murderer, she broke up because apparently he lied about his feelings. I mean yeah that's a good enough reason to leave someone but she didn’t even think about that 'murder' part for one bit. If a man followed me to the other side of the world and started stalking me and going after me every single day for months, I'd be HORRIFIED.
Men. Need. Hobbies. Other than Stalking ofc.
Dude, she might be naïve but she was not a child who could not think for herself. Anyways, this whole morally-grey thing was just dumb to be written in contemporaries without the character being punished or face some consequences at the very least for his actions. These things are appropriate only in fantasy because those worlds are not ours.

Also, everyone had been gushing about the friendship group of the four ladies even though there aren't many scenes of the group in the book, let alone be called the 'perfect' friends. Honestly, all of those ladies deserve the 'worst friends of the year' award for not raising any red flag for Alex's behaviour, not even Jules who was supposed to be the sassy femme fatale out of the group. I'm sorry, does the femme fatale only lure men for sex?

“And your pussy is mine. Every inch of you belongs to me, and if you ever let another man touch you—” My other hand closed around her throat. “He’ll end up in pieces, and you’ll end up tied to my bed and fucked in every hole until my name is the only one you remember. Do you understand?”

Mom, I'm scared.
No seriously, this is weird and not the least bit of hot. And I still don't know how to react on 'sacrifical virgin waiting defilement'. I'm sorry I just don't like smut I guess, I might like it if it didn't have dirty talk I think. Nonetheless, reading these scenes was awkward and cringy and I just wanted to skip. I'm sure it's on me because a lot of people seem to enjoy this. Also, him saying that the women can't handle what he was into made me think that he was into BDSM and shit but no, he just liked it from the back.
Yeah.
Anyways.

I don't feel the chemistry between them. Personally, I like it when there's a good buildup and we can literally feel what the characters are feeling everytime they get to touch each other (not romantically) and you can just see that the two are longing for each other both physically and emotionally. But in here, I felt nothing at all. I could only sense lust since every time they touched, he was hard and she was wet like please stop! I get the appeal of sexual tension but can we have touches that are romantic and sweet instead of always being overtly sexual and wanting to fuck each other all the damn time? I don't know if Alex and Ava did any sweet thing that people in love do other than sex since we never saw any of that. It was only told through an inner monologue and the things we saw were just sex or him being aggressive as fuck. To sum it all up, this was everything I don't want in a relationship. This romance could only cater to a specific audience and I'm happily not with them.

I had only talked about the cons of the novel because that's what I have to say. There is nothing good about this story, at least for me. I read it only because I didn't want to be the only one who had not read this novel and now I miss the time when I knew nothing about this. Honestly, after reading this book, I don't even want to continue with the series but a lot have been saying that the 2nd book about Bridget and Rhys was the best one in the series so I guess I will read it to find out.

Charisma on Command: Inspire, Impress, and Energize Everyone You Meet by Charlie Houpert

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informative medium-paced

3.75

I wanted to be the guy who was slapping hands with people as he crossed the quad. I wanted to be invited to parties and have people be disappointed when I couldn’t come. I wanted to be the man who lit up a room.

I think he just spelled out my need to read this book in these few lines accurately.

This book promised a lot in its introduction. I had high hopes from it because I have always wanted to be like 'that friend' from a group who everyone likes and listens to. Of course, who wouldn't want to be someone who everyone admires and who is being listened to by everyone instead of being ignored? For that, this book works as a good compact and practical advice for everyone who's looking forwards to upgrade their social behaviour in order to become magnetic and have social intelligence. Even if you don't want to impress someone, or be the life of a party, I think such behavioural cues and habits ought to be practiced by everyone as they will make you a good person in society.

The book is easy to read, packed with interesting examples from real life celebrities and personalities, and in the end has a 30 day action plan which I found to be fun, if not effective enough to make you charismatic in just 30 days. I won't say that I've instantly developed my charisma just by reading this book over the span of a month but it did teach me some things which I'm glad about.

However, this book also had a few things that I need to address since it was not all good and helpful. The book didn’t seem like it was edited. There were a lot of grammatical errors. Although, it didn't hinder my experience of reading it by a greater extent because I liked how this guy narrated whatever he had to say. But yeah, it was noticeable and at times, unpleasant.

Also, there were a few things that Charlie finds charismatic which I don't. For example, I don't like someone who's loud. Even if he's not literally shouting on the top of his lungs, I'll still won't find them attractive. Also, how am I supposed to have a natural deep voice when I'm a woman who naturally has a high-pitched voice? And I think this book had a few things that won't apply to a woman for her to be 'conventionally' charismatic.

Is it just me or do others also don't like it when someone starts telling you your 'purpose of life' on the first day that you meet? I mean it's okay if you are doing something on a grand scale which needs you to tell others about your goals otherwise I don't think that it's something to shout about to literally everyone you meet. Or perhaps it could be just me since I like to keep such things private. I don't know I'm really troubled here.

This book neither mentioned if these tips don't apply to woman nor that they do. So, I started reading with no expectations but by the end of it, I can see that this book is targeted to its male audience and a few things here are not considered 'charismatic' for women by others. I'm puzzled. Should I follow those tips which I also find to be charismatic or should I follow this person blindly who doesn't seem reliable enough.

All in all, I think this was quite good to be read in order to improve your personality and social behaviour.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It dominates. There’s not much I can do about it. Trust me. It doesn’t go away. It’s there whether I like it or not. It’s there when I eat. When I go to bed. It’s there when I sleep. It’s there when I wake up. It’s always there. Always.

I knew that I'll be hooked to this novel just after reading the first paragraph, and I was right. This was a fast-paced page-turner as you can't help but keep on reading until the end of the book just to know what the fuck was actually happening. And just when you thought that it was going to end, it slaps you with a twist that you will not see coming.

The synopsis of the book says, 'You'll be scared and you won't know why..'

Well, YES. The book was creepy in a way that you could never guess why exactly you were scared. It just makes you feel like something is going to happen but you can't do anything about it so you just wait for the shit to go down. For instance, the visit at the parent's house was uncomfortable but I couldn't pinpoint why I was feeling that way. Firstly, his parents were behaving weirdly friendly like you just know when someone is actually nice and when someone is faking it. From the beginning, you just know that something is off, that someone is hiding things from you, that the narrator (the girl) was unreliable and untrustworthy and as you get to that part, everything starts to make sense. This is one of those books which you read for the first time and experience it in a way but when you find out the truth and read it for the second time, you experience every scenario, every conversation in a different way and the things will start clicking to you because now you know what exactly was scaring you.

The story is told by this unnamed girlfriend of a man known as Jake as they both are in a car by which they are going to visit Jake's childhood farm to meet his parents. The girlfriend, although gives us a lot of reasons as to why she's attracted to Jake, is however thinking of ending things. That's exactly how the book starts. The story is intercut with brief sections of dialogue between two (or more) people who are discussing about a custodian who just killed himself. And now we'll dive into the spoilers….

I was confused throughout the novel. What the heck was wrong with his parents? Why were those girls at Dairy Queen giggling at them? And who even stops the car in a snowstorm to drink milkshakes when it's so dark outside? I did not trust Jake at all, you just know when someone is being shady af. What was the need to stop the car to search for a bin to throw the cups in the middle of nowhere during a snowstorm? Excuse me? The girlfriend should've been angrier than she was, but I get why she was not because she was the 'ideal' woman in Jake's mind.

It was him all along. It was Jake. The man. Because he is Jake. We are. We can’t hold it in any longer. The tears come. Tears again.

The part where the twist is presented to us in the audiobook was great. The repetition of "What are you waiting for?" in varied tones until finally the voice of the girl transforms into the man's voice was fantastic. Honestly, it increased the shock value of the twist for me since I did not see that coming. The plot twist was great and although a veteran thriller reader might have guessed it but personally, I could not. I thought that the lady was schizophrenic and she was the one imagining all that but who would've guessed that it was actually that man who had dissociative identity disorder. That was the shocking part and it completely blew me away and made me question whatever the heck I just read in all those previous pages.

An old man who is a custodian at a high school is filled with feelings of loneliness, hopelessness and regret as he questions whether he should continue to live on, he plays out a scenario in his head from the perspective of a woman who he wished he dated. The things that the girlfriend likes about Jake are the things that he likes about himself or wishes that others would see the same. At the end we see the man's perspective and find out that he didn't actually give the girl his number and they never talked again so, everything in the story is happening inside Jake's mind. It's a dreamlike speculation based on real people and fragments of old memories from his past. Jake was just a lonely, mentally unstable man who was dealing with depression. Although I'm not someone who can decode the symbolism of a story easily and aptly but I could tell that this novel was filled with symbols and metaphors that threw light on Jake's depression. The creepy paintings were something that honestly felt like a red herring to me but the dead pigs scene seemed to show the inside of Jake's mind. Just like those maggots entered the pigs body through a small cut and started eating them from inside, Jake's depression might have been caused by a traumatic experience during childhood which later overpowered his brain. All the scenes played out in his head and while we were under the impression that the girlfriend wanted to end things with him, just because, it was actually Jake himself who was thinking of ending his life.

The 'walking around the school in the dark' scene was, in my opinion, done really well. While reading that, I could sense the fear that the girl was experiencing and it was uncomfortable. You know I love reading those stories where the horrifying things aren't supernatural, but something very much human because it gives you the feeling that it can very much happen to you and this story had bits of that.

I was surprised that a male author had picked up on the psychology of a woman quite well. The girlfriend was apologetic and agreeable. She was always trying to justify the actions of Jake even if it would seem strange to someone else. This is something that women tend to do a lot (I've never seen any of my male friends do something like that) so the fact that a male writer portrayed that thought process so well was amusing.

I really liked the atmosphere that the author had created throughout the story, those eerie vibes that make you suspect every single person but what threw me off were the characters, even though I kinda get now why they were the way they were. The writing style was harsh, if that makes sense? The way that the characters spoke to each other was blunt and I did not like Jake at all. Well, I didn't like any of the characters but the way Jake spoke was frustrating. He came out as an arrogant know-it-all who loved to have the last say during any conversation. Personally, I find smart people really attractive but if that person in question is Jake, I would walk away. He was just so imposing and annoying.

All in all, this book was really entertaining and I enjoyed how it made me feel. I didn't love it but I totally see this as something that I would recommend to those who like unreliable narratives, roadtrip in a blizzard and the uncertainty of the unknown.

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

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dark reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.

Whenever I see someone talking about this book online, I always find them either saying that this is one of the best and most influential novels that they have ever read or they complain about how insufferable and misogynistic the character and well, technically, the author was. I, on the other hand, find myself puzzled as to where I belong in this spectrum so, after days of reflecting on my mixed opinions on this novel, I'm now ready to write about my thoughts.

This novel is about Oba Yozo as we follow the journey from his childhood to adulthood where we get to witness his detachment from humanity, his beliefs and the choices he made that led to his downfall. The novel opens with no explanation of who's speaking or who he's speaking about but as we read on, we get to know that this was actually written by a person who got these three notebooks and three photographs from a lady at the bar and he found it so intriguing that he decided to publish it without any editing while adding a prologue and an epilogue from his point of view. Those three notebooks were journals of Oba Yozo who had a unique yet familiar mindset to a lot of readers. He had an alien outlook on life. He was the typical social-outcast or should I say humanity-outcast but it's ironic how this book felt so human which explained why a mass of audience felt him to be similar to their unspoken thoughts and belief.

Yozo considered a lot of things humanity does as either boring or terrifying. He called humanity dull and boring and considered emotions and desires as scary virtues. He found it terrifying that any person can do whatever they want in order to quench their desires, for instance, the male and maid-servants 'corrupting' him during his childhood and that eventually led to him having a fear of connection and understanding with people. He struggled with understanding humans or to know why they do the things they do. He's intrigued that even if humans are going through problems or they hold grudges, they always put on a façade and turn into someone else, however the situation requires them to be.

The change in him was so extraordinary as to inspire me with thoughts of how contemptible—or rather, how comic—human beings are who can metamorphize themselves as simply and effortlessly as they turn over their hands.

His greatest fear was anyone seeing him for what he really was and seeing the 'mask' he put on in front of people. When Takeichi called him out for missing the bar on purpose, Yozo was horrified. When the District attorney saw through his mask and asked if his cough was real, Yozo considered spending ten years in jail as more favourable than to live that moment. In order to protect himself when someone tried to get close to him, he resorted to what he called 'clowning' which was just making fun of people and being someone like a class-clown so that others would think of himself as a nobody, or in his words, a clown.

Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer "Nothing." The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy. At the same time I was congenitally unable to refuse anything offered to me by another person, no matter how little it might suit my tastes.

He was a people-pleaser and would do things to reach others' expectations. He was scared of letting people down, not because he cared for them but because he was terrified of what would happen if he did otherwise and someone didn't get their way. He carried on to make others laugh no matter how much it exhausted him. He showed that he wanted the lion-mask because that's what his father wanted for him. He ran errands for the Communist rebellions. He did not reveal that the blood that was on the napkin was because of the pimple behind his ear, not because he wanted to get away with it but because that was what the man expected and assumed.

Yozo thought that what the people joining the Communist Party did was stupid but he continued to attend the meetings religiously just because he liked the idea of something being outside of society's accepted parameters. He started running errands (as mentioned before, just to let people have their way) and quit school altogether since he stopped attending his lessons.

When Yozo was in debt and became an alcoholic, he stumbled upon Tsuneko who was depressed, just like him and for the first time in his life, he felt comfort in someone's presence because that someone was just as miserable as him. He found shelter in people with the same self-destructing behaviour as himself. She also lived a life of poverty which pulled him closer to her. He began having suicidal thoughts but the last straw was when he faced the humiliation of not having enough money to feed the woman with him. That small but impactful moment made him despise the idea of living even more and the pair decided to throw themselves into the river. She died but he was saved. She was probably the only person he ever loved but this love was toxic. We tend to bond with people having same backgrounds, situations, problems or interests as ourselves but this thing can also prove to be devastating in certain situations. When two people with self-destructing behaviour come together, they destroy each other and can't necessarily uplift each other no matter how connected and 'understood' they felt with each other. And in Yozo's case, he had a lot of love affairs but he treated all those women equally cruelly. The news was featured wildly due to him being the son of a politician but it was this event that made his father completely cut him off.

From then, he became even more of an alcoholic, a drug addict and was moving on for a slow suicide by consuming such substances on a regular basis. He met more women, which was intriguing to me as to how all these women managed to fall for someone like him, and by the end of the story, he ended up with a fate which to me seemed worse than death.

Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes. That is the one and only thing I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning Hell.

While speaking about this novel, you can’t stop yourself from saying anything about the author himself as somehow you'll feel an ominous aura surrounding this book due to all that happened in real life. Dazai Osamu was born in 1909 to a politician. In 1929, he attempted his first suicide but failed. The following year, he joined a college, became used to drinking in bars and going to brothels until he was eventually expelled from college for poor attendance and was disowned by his family. He attempted suicide by jumping in an ocean with a woman he met at a bar. She died, he survived, he got married and attempted suicide again for the third time by sleeping pills. He survived, became a morphine addict and survived sometime at a psych ward. At least in parts, if not whole, No Longer Human is the life story of Dazai Osamu, as mentioned at the back of the cover that this was a semi-autobiographical story which is something to think about. Where the story differs is the ending. While we don't really know if Yozo was still alive by the time those notebooks reached the author, Dazai Osamu in 1948, and his mistress tied themselves together and attempted suicide by jumping in the waters which resulted in both of them dying. After a series of failed attempts, he succeeded in the end as his body was found on the day of his birthday when he would have turned 39 otherwise.

This novel is immensely popular and with popularity comes a vast majority of different opinions. The readers of this novel are broadly divided into two sections. The first section includes those readers who find this book absurd and think Yozo as a person who is extremely opposite from them because of his deeds and decisions. The other group of people found it rather relatable and comforting at points because it spoke what they had hidden deep inside their heart as they are the people who can't seem to be able to conform with the norms of society. They sympathize with Yozo. Personally, I lie somewhere in the middle of this divide. Yozo was a truly unlikable enigmatic, alienated, pessimistic, nihilistic, self-centered and a good-for-nothing contemptible miserable person who was haunted by the society, but he made a whole lot of readers feel sympathy for him. Personally, I'm not one of those readers. At some points, I felt truly seen while reading this novel.

For someone like myself in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expression on people's faces….

I wonder if I have actually been happy. People have told me, really more times than I can remember, ever since I was a small boy, how lucky I was, but I have always felt as if I were suffering in hell. It has seemed to me in fact that those who called me lucky were incomparably more fortunate than I.

But at other times, I was perplexed by the differences between me and him. If this novel leans a lot more on the relatable side for you then you need help. The thoughts he had, resonated with me but the place where he and I differs is the series of choices. I would not react to things like he did and would never treat everybody with absolute insincerity because he actually was a morally reprehensible human being which explained why a lot of people hate him so much but I also understand partially why he was the way he was.

I thought that I for one would like to make such a prayer: Oh, vouchsafe unto me a will of ice. Acquaint me with the true natures of "human beings." Is it not a sin for a man to push aside his fellow? Vouchsafe unto me a mask of anger.

Whenever we think of our place and purpose in the universe, we fall into a spiral. I don't think that we can ever understand universe to its full extent. Yozo tried to accomplish the same and not only lost himself but also plummeted into despair. He felt so separated from his humanity that he could never stop or speak against the sexual assaults done to himself and his wife Yoshiko. His only reaction was the bleak thought that it was only natural, that humans are made that way and it's their natural behaviour.

I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe in the existence of heaven.

To give you an example of how pessimistic Yozo was, a lot of people somehow tried to help him throughout his alcoholism, addiction and suicidal choices, but he put great efforts to show how 'evil' or 'bad' those people are. He hated the idea of them helping him by indirectly getting closer to him, and he hated himself to an even more extent. That man had a negative outlook on everyone and everything around him, including himself and he was not interested in reforming his life for the better. If you call that man a loser, that man would agree with you.

His views about women were misogynistic which were reflective of time and society during the post war Japan. He said that he didn’t consider prostitutes as people, however, if we look at it from his point of view, it wasn't necessarily an insult. It's true that this was demeaning but to Yozo, humans are horrifying creature who he didn’t want to get close to and as for prostitution, he could explore about the women form without having to form connections with them. The misogynistic and lack of empathy from Yozo probably reveals more about his own nature and lack of ability to understand and connect with others than any actual quality about the others. I’m typically strongly put off by the endless examples of Japanese male writers treating females in the most disgusting and pathetic ways. But in this case it really felt like a self-critique of these attitudes rather than a promotion of them. Yozo was a miserable man in the 1900s and he was self-aware of his misery.

I believe that the sexual assault that Yozo experienced from the servants in his childhood and untreated trauma was somehow always the root of all his lifelong isolation and feelings of hopelessness. Although these tragic incidents don't excuse some of the worst decisions he made all throughout the story, but they do serve as the breeding ground for all of his self-destructive, self-alienation thoughts. The distrust and inability to understand others, the feeling of being unable to control his own life, the crippling fear of refusing what is given to him and letting others down by not standing up to their 'non-imposing' expectations….a lot of survivors experience the same thing. It’s so sad that he never got help. Even if he had tried to seek help from someone, no one would have taken him seriously and he would have been 'expected' to stay silent. In his words, 'to perpetrate such a thing on a small child is the ugliest, vilest, crudest crime a human being can commit'.

What is society but an individual?

It was also interesting to see that even though Yozo always seemed to be confused about the thought process and behaviors of humanity, he was well aware about a lot of societal things and even acted upon a few, thus technically making him a part of that same society as well. He knew the toxicity of addiction and alcoholism. He knew that when Horiki was telling him that the society would judge him, in actuality, it was Horiki as an individual who would be judging him.

Despite Yozo's nature, there were still instances in his life where he had a sliver of hope for actually finding happiness but these were however shut down rather quickly. It wasn't until he was admitted to the sanatorium that his transformation was finally completed stating that that was the moment he was completely disqualified as a human or that he was no longer human.

"The Yozo we knew was so easy-going and amusing, and if only he hadn't drunk—no, even though he did drink—he was a good boy, an angel."

The ending was, well how to say this. It was heartbreaking. No, I didn’t cry while reading the story, nor did my chest felt heavy. It wasn't as "disturbing" or "dark", at least in my opinion, as the people hyped it to be but the ending was the only part which made me feel some type of way. It was upsetting how different the others' interpretation of Yozo and his own depiction of himself was. He loathed himself to a point of delusion. I, in no way, mean that he was a good human. He surely did some messed up things and he was definitely a good for nothing but reading that line made me wonder if he actually was as bad as he considered himself to be, if he truly was disqualified as a human. The ending can mean two things---- Either even at the end of the story, no one was able to understand him truly which was technically a good thing in his opinion or he was so delusional to an extent to exaggerate all the 'bad' things he did to keep on fueling his hatred towards himself. In the translator's words, "In the way that most men fail to see their own cruelty, Yozo had not noticed his gentleness and his capacity for love."

This book was heavy and I had a lot to say. What I find great about this novel is that Yozo was not trying to please anyone in his journals, unlike his personality. He was honest and self-aware but it was frustrating that he did not do anything about it. How can someone be so awfully aware of how terrible they are but at the same time have no inclination to do anything about it?

The book mirrors the deepest thoughts we have on a daily basis and presents them to us in a manner that can make one lose hopes if the one reading it is depressed or going through something in his life. It didn't leave a lasting impression on me. I was ticked off by the problematic statements against women due to being one myself no matter how much I understood the justification that you could provide in that matter.

If you are somebody who's dealing with a sense of alienation, disillusionment, depression and self-loathing, this book can provide you the 'what-if' of inculcating such mindset in your daily life. This novel can either trigger your traumas and anxiety and make you fall down a rabbit-hole of nihilism by forcing you to probe into the darkest corners of humanity just like the main character Oba Yozo or it can encourage you to overcome them in order not to repeat the same mistakes as that of him. If you're having similar thoughts as him, it can be harder to see where he was 'wrong' in his thought process.

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b0r3d_2710_'s reviews 67 reviews

b0r3d_2710_'s reviews
67 reviews