#heaven meiko kawakami

[aboutsomething-beautiful]

Did the 24-hour reading challenge recently with my best friend and somehow chose the most upsetting books to read for it. I finished:

“Heaven”, Meiko Kawakami

“Written on the Body”, Jeanette Winterson

“The Audition”, Ryu Murakami

“A Talent for Murder”, Peter Swanson

(also my high school yearbook because Robin got distracted)

Lots of heavy material to pack into such a short timeframe.

[4rtsymugzzz]

I'll be reading a book and all of a sudden a character starts m@sturbating like wtf homie I didn't ask???? 💀💀💀

[applearchived]

Because we’re always in pain, we know exactly what it means to hurt somebody else.

-Meiko Kawakami in “Heaven”

[spilled-latte-enjoyer]

“we’ll understand some things while we’re alive and some after we die. but it doesn’t really matter when it happens. what matters is that all the pain and all the sadness have meaning.”

[stargirlyblog]

—Heaven - Meiko Kawakami

[stardust-on-crustedblood]

"Hey... if we keep doing this, just saying nothing, no matter what they do, think maybe we'll become things too?"

~Mieko Kawakami (Heaven)

[theancientmar1ner]

jokes aside i really have come to love meiko kawakami i think the picture she creates of the setting of her stories is so beautiful and expansive, it just makes me want to cry. i feel like a lot of modern lit fails to really embed the characters in their surroundings and she does it so well like second only to khaled hosseini imo. love her.

[book51ut]

Review of Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

a heartbreaking tale of two fourteen year olds being bullied. the book is only about 150 pages long which i honestly think is a detriment to the story. most of the book was descriptions of the torment the main character received at the hands of his bullies and his apprehensive excitement about engaging with his new friend, who was also being abused by her classmates. there was one incredibly profound conversation between the main character and one of his bullies. he assumes that he is being bullied because of his lazy eye and that the other girl is being bullied because she is poor, and the bully claims that it has nothing to do with either of those things. They are bullied simply because the bullies can, simply because the bullies feel like it and want to. The bully himself admits that he would hate if his sister was bullied, yet feels no remorse for bullying. The two have a very nihilistic discussion about the nature of people’s actions- the bully claiming that people don’t care what is good or bad, only what they want.

There’s also a line that particularly stuck with me, more because of recent personal events than anything else, but the writing is beautiful “There’s no beautiful world where everyone thinks the same way and they all understand each other perfectly. It doesn’t exist. You think it does, but it’s not real… When our worlds come into contact it might look like they’re connected, but they’re not.”

I liked the book, i think it was well written. However a little too short.

[iris-564s-blog]

Funnily enough, I have compiled a small list of books centred around school (with dark themes) for this month.

- Heaven by Meiko Kawakami

- Never let me go by Kazua Ishiguro

- Blood and guts in high school by Kathy Acker

Please feel free to add to this list (preferably literary fiction)

March is the month of extreme stress because it reminds me of school finals which used to be around this time.

Now despite school being over years ago, (im 24 now) the stress of it all still haunts me during spring.

[s4nmei]

If anything has meaning, everything does. And if nothing has meaning, nothing does. That's what I was saying. It's all the same. You, me, we're all free to interpret the world however we want. We see the world differently. It's that simple.

Meiko Kawakami, Heaven.

[hazel-tv]

But I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I guess I was crying because we had nowhere else to go, no choice but to go on living in this world. Crying because we had no other world to choose, and crying at everything before us, everything around us.

- Heaven, Meiko Kawakami

[ireneinreverie]

"When I was writing, I realized something. Your voice reminds me of a 6B. I’m not sure if this is going to make sense, but it’s like they’re soft and rigid at the same time. Almost unbreakable."

[tokyoviee]

productivity day 12

didn't attend lectures today since my muscles decided to cramp up. I was busy having a mental breakdown over my incomplete syllabus for my upcoming test. slept for like 8 hours and decided to study. i started watching a webseries and wanted to finish a book. ;/

chemistry mistake book, paper 2

asur - season 1 episode 1.

physics - free body diagram+ friction.

🎧 : cris mj, floyymenor - gata only

🎥 : asur (hindi) season 1

📚 : heaven by meiko kawakami

[yutarot]

hi! i love the detail you put into the plots of ur smaus! u mentioned before that u read alot, what are ur favorite books? :)

thank u sm!! i’m so happy someone asked this i loveee talking about my favourite reads so im 100% gonna yap about it

i’ll put pictures of each of the covers at the end !!

sense and sensibility — jane austen

probably one of my favourite austen novels, i love how complex she makes the sisters despite them being completely defined by the title 😪😪😪😪

a winters promise — christelle dabos

this entire series is just soooo beautiful, definitely gave me howls movie castle vibes when i read it. it’s also originally written in french so the way it’s written is just so pretty but also easy to read

heaven — meiko kawakami

i cried SO MUCH at this book. that’s all i have to say.

the bell jar — sylvia plath

this being her only and last novel is just so intense, one of the most important stories ive ever read, especially in its context. one of the only books that i would definitely read over and over and still be in awe.

1984 — george orwell

MY MIND EXPLODED. started using orwell essays in all my assignments for a good few months after reading this. that man is a genius

things fall apart — chinua achebe

chose this as my college coursework analysis study, such an interesting story with sooo many levels to it

powerless — lauren roberts (a guilty pleasure 🙁🙁)

kai azer. next.

fourth wing — rebecca yarros (another guilty pleasure)

the how to train ur dragon lover inside of me can’t let this book go, need the paperback of the second book out now i’ve been waiting way too long 😪

there’s definitely more! but these are the notable few that i would fs class as my favs

[elysiumwhispers]

decided to make a book list on here to keep track of books ive read recently that i enjoyed:

Nausea-Sartre

Quicksand-Junichiro Tanizaki

Sputnik Sweetheart- Murakami

Heaven- Meiko Kawakami

Essays and Aphorisms- Schopenhauer

The Stranger / The Plague - Camus

The Inseparables- Beavoir

Notes from Underground- Dostoevsky

[touchlikethesun]

”sometimes i wonder what it would be like if we didn’t have words,” i found myself saying. “yeah i mean we’re the only ones who need them,” kojima said, looking me straight in the eye. “dogs don’t. and neither do things, like uniforms, or desks, or vases.” “you’re right. look at everything else in the world,” i said. “we’re completely outnumbered.” “if you really think about it,” kojima said, “it’s kind of stupid. human beings are the only ones talking all the time and making problems and everything.”

— heaven, meiko kawakami