Reviews tagging 'Cultural appropriation'

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark

5 reviews

heather667's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? Yes

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

sofipitch's review

Go to review page

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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

distraughtplant's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark hopeful 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

4.25

The Unbroken gripped my heart in my chest and dug in its nails and left it in shreds and only just barely mended it together again. Which is strikingly similar to the quote on the front page, but thats exactly what it feels like. That piece of praise sold me on this book, and by Shāl did C.L. Clark deliver. 

The main issue I found in this book is that we could've had more insight and "behind the scenes" looks at why the Luca and Tourraine especially make the decisions they do. Sometimes decisions are made that don't feel like they ever have space to be processed because we glaze over the internal processes and struggles of the characters.

However! I loved this book. The Unbroken is loyalty and betrayal and heartbreak and revolution and political pressures and magic and a little bit of lust. It is gorgeous and heart wrenching and real. There are no moments any characters actions felt rushed or out of place. I love this book for it's perfect pacing, it's immaculate queer representation (and non binary representation! I NEED to see more of Niwai and their lioness). I love it most for it's many showcases of the complexities around human emotions and thought processes and why people may do the things they do. I also love it for it's calculated witholdings of full explanation. Humans don't always even know why they've done something, just that it feels it's the right way, or the only option. I love The Unbroken for it's raw depictions of humanity, which will stick with me long after the images of blood, shit, and gore fade away. 



Expand filter menu Content Warnings

theirgracegrace's review

Go to review page

emotional inspiring reflective 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

4.75

The Unbroken asks the question: what about those parts of the fantasy world that are the "colonies"? Set in a queer-positive fictional setting that mirrors French-controlled Saharan Africa, Clark's characters live in the awkward space of either benefitting from or being the product of the colonial state. Clark cleverly deconstructs how the colonial state of Balladaire's oppression has separated the people of Qāzal from their culture and their heritage and made many into soldiers to further that oppression. A book that I cannot stop thinking about and eagerly awaiting the sequel of!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

andromeda_1998's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’m having a hard time deciding how to write this review. Especially since I did like the book but I question some of the choices the author makes…

What is the book about (without spoilers):
Touraine has been a soldier for most parts of her life. She was a child stolen from her family and she was raised to serve the empire. But when her company is sent back to the land she comes from, to stop a rebellion, nog everything goes as planned. 

Luca is the princes of the empire, sent to her rebel filled colony to still the rebellion. She needs a turncoat to reach her goals.

Together they are looking for a way towards peace between the Empire and the colony.

My thoughts about the book:
Like i said before this book is hat to review. There are a lot of things happening in this novel that I do love but that doesn’t solve my mixed feelings about some things in the plot.

The world-building in this book is amazing. It’s rich and details but we haven’t learned everything there is to know about this world and the author leaves the reader with some major questions especially about the magic system. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing since it’s the first book of a series and  I cannot wait to read the sequel.

The writingstyle used for this book is impressive. It reads away in a good pace but I sometimes felt like I was thrown in a scene without any explanation of how we came to that point.

The characters aren’t badly written but i also didn’t think that they were done especially well. One is a princes studying from birth to be queen and the other is a luitenant who has command over her own regiment but some how both of them weren’t able to make a well thought out plan….they both should have known better for 80% of the book.

I hated the relationship between the two main characters. When I heard this book was sapphic I couldn’t contain my happiness but this relationships was a burning dumpster fire of toxic waist.

However I did love the plot and the side plots. This book shows us a good explanation of the sentence “Hey Colonizer.”  It also shows how the europions destroyed all the different cultures that they got there hands on.

Favo quote:
“Too many died I a war that wasn’t theirs”
“Your rebellion would be another one”
“You’ll have to fight for one side or the other. Why not fight for the side that gives you freedom?”
“Because I can fight for the side that’s winning.”
Winning isn’t everything. It’s how you win that matters most

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
More...