Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury

39 reviews

abby_can_read's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, and Slavery

Moderate: Racism, Addiction, and Eating disorder

Minor: Gun violence, Transphobia, and Police brutality

jennireadsmaybe's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Liselle Sambury bends so many genres in Blood Like Magic. It's witchy, dark, urban fantasy with a little bit futuristic sci-fi thrown in. It's definitely the most unique fantasy book I've picked up in a while! The world-building is top tier and the atmosphere is a character in itself. I was in futuristic Canada right along side Voya. 

Speaking of Voya, I love her so much! Liselle Sambury takes the chosen one trope and throws it on its head with Voya. From the start, she doesn't want to do what's asked of her. So much of this story is a love letter to proving people wrong. Voya comes into herself so beautifully in this first book, so I can't wait to see what the consequences are! 

The romance between Voya and Luc is the perfect addition to the already high stakes. Was nobody going to tell me Luc is a trans boy love interest!! Safe to say, I was very pleasantly surprised when I found out. Their romance is sickeningly sweet in the best way! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Slavery, and Murder

Moderate: Racism, Eating disorder, and Addiction

Minor: Gun violence, Police brutality, and Transphobia

mallotar's review against another edition

dark inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Murder, Blood, and Slavery

Moderate: Death, Addiction, Racism, Violence, and Police brutality

Minor: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Cursing

cosmicwillow's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

this was such a fascinating and gripping world! the story was cool, but i think the setting sold me the most; i found the balance of fantasy and a future sci-fi to be really fun - not quite the typical urban fantasy you’d expect! im very much looking forward to reading the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, Racism, Slavery, and Death

Minor: Transphobia and Addiction

melodyseestrees's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Slavery, and Torture

Moderate: Racism, Eating disorder, and Addiction

Minor: Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Gun violence, and Police brutality

therainbowshelf's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

If you're looking for a dark, witchy sci-fi fantasy centering a strong female protagonist, this might be a pick for you! I enjoyed it but I didn't love it. A few things didn't work for me, especially every characters' insistence that words without set meaning definitely have this one specific random interpretation that doesn't make a ton of sense. That part was just frustrating and was a major plot element. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Gore, Slavery, Racism, Transphobia, Murder, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Blood, Violence, Grief, and Torture

Moderate: Eating disorder

tinysierra's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

“There’s something about lounging in a bath of blood that makes me want to stay until my fingers shrivel enough to show the outlines of my bones.” pg 1

I expected to fall in love with Blood like Magic. The synopsis was interesting and the first sentence hooked me. It’s got black witches and queer representation. Speaking of, I swear I’ve seen this book on asexual rec lists, but asexual and aromantic are two different things. It has an explicit demiromantic (meaning that they’re on the aromantic spectrum) side character. There is another character that does not seem to enjoy physical touch or kissing, but the word asexual is not used. Moving on, another thing that influenced me to read the book was the fact that the plot reminded me of Raybearer, which I really loved. 

Maybe I set my expectations too high. I’m not sure. I originally decided to DNF this book because it was a bit repetitive and felt like nothing was really happening. After a few months, I picked it up again to see if it got better. I enjoyed the interactions we got to see between Luc and Voya. The way the plot was executed just didn’t do anything for me. I think the writing style was too… dense and long winded. The book felt too long. The pacing was not fast. 

I’m disappointed because I also really loved the cover of this one and the sequel. I won’t be reading the second book. 

Themes:

-Broken family

-importance of community

-importance of family ties

-connection to ancestors 

-cooking 

-sacrifice

-trust
-addiction
-poverty
-eating disorder briefly mentioned 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Slavery, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, and Torture

Moderate: Drug abuse, Mass/school shootings, and Transphobia

Minor: Addiction, Eating disorder, and Vomit

gengariite's review against another edition

Truly unsure how so many people are giving this 5 and 4 star ratings.
The introduction of the main characters love interest is riddled with [what i’m hoping was unintentional] transphobia and othering. 

The MC going on a lecture about how pronouns are found in this world and how she ALWAYS uses neutral ones for strangers? weird. super unnecessary and it made me, a trans reader, feel weird! and then the MC being able to use her super techy phone to just pull up the fact that her love interest was trans? heinous. that’s weird. And what’s even worse? the main character immediately jumps to wondering if the trans character has had this worlds procedures done for their genitalia.

i get trying to tell readers your world is inclusive and being very blunt and obvious about it. i also get introducing part of the book - genetic hacking - as a concept through this. but it was so horrific to read as someone who is trans/nonbinary. I don’t think its too much to ask for inclusion to not be this harmful

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Transphobia

xandra_'s review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Murder, Torture, Blood, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, and Slavery

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Police brutality, Racism, Deportation, Stalking, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Outing, Suicide, and Transphobia

Minor: Alcohol, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

luciameetsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Transphobia and Racism

Minor: Suicide