Reviews with content warning for Ableism - The Unbroken

Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

katclaybaugh's review

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adventurous hopeful medium-paced

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

4.0

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lady_of_the_labyrinth's review

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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mar's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

2.5

this was so mediocre why did u guys lie to me :(

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lanid's review

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dark

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

3.75

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sofipitch's review

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dark medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

The characters are interesting, the themes are good. Occasionally explainy or clunky but overall good. Tourraine's struggle to find her place after being displaced from her homeland, the way she is not fully a part of either, and how she keeps fucking up trying to work with either were well done and really hit. Also just fun fucked up romance subplot. Good mommy issues subplot. A lot of the character arcs and work blended really well with the overall plot. How Luca wanted to be "a good ruler" but for so long couldn't see how that conflicted with being a colonialist ruler. The big flaw of this is the default no gender or sexuality power dynamics, because it smooths out the race and colonialism ones, making things less complicated. But regardless still well done especially compared to other stuff I read *cough * Baru Cormorant *cough *What more can I say other than sign me up for the sequel, although I think this would work fine as a stand alone

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backitupmoony's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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wardenred's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

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

3.0

Change was coming. Touraine aimed to be on the right side of it.

I'm afraid this is one of those times when I've built up really high expectations for a book in my head, and then the book and I just didn't click. There were definitely parts of it that I liked; in particular, I was impressed by the vivid, visceral portrayal of colonialism and all the varied harm it can bring. I liked some of the relationships among the Sands. The prose and the pacing both flowed really well for the most part. There were a lot of interesting worldbuilding elements.

Unfortunately, the main characters just... weren't my cup of tea. Both Touraine and Luca made so many downright stupid choices, it was hard to understand how either of them had survived long enough to begin the plot in their respective positions. Touraine's entire personality seemed to be at odds with the role she was in. She literally gets praised by a friend for thinking before she acts, but the fact is, most of the time she very much doesn't. And Luca so clearly lacked the knowledge and understanding of all things political, which was odd considering the way she was brought up. That just kept taking me out of the story.

Also, the romantic storyline that I expected to be one of the main draws was probably my least favorite aspect of the book. Given the premise and how thoroughly colonialism was explored in other parts of the story, I expected the romance to be more explicitly/genuinely enemies-to-lovers, with higher-stakes conflict, and with an equally thorough examining of the oppressor/coloniser dynamic and its inherent toxicity, hopefully with both leads recognizing the toxicity. Instead, all too often it fell into the usual romanticized tropes with little self-awareness.

Overall, lots of mixed feelings. Perhaps I would have enjoyed the story more if it was about the same world and events, but with different characters?

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