Reviews with content warning for Sexism - The Familiar

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

17 reviews

chronicacademia's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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savvyrosereads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Rating: 5/5 stars

Luzia is a scullion in the home of Valentina and Marius Ordoño when her “small miracles” get her drawn into a dangerous tournament to become the king’s champion.

Leigh Bardugo is one of my favorite authors, and this book absolutely reminded me why. I’ll start with the writing: it is STUNNINGLY good, with so many witty and beautiful quotes throughout. If I was annotating this, I could use up entire highlighter collections noting my favorite passages and moments.
 Secondly, the characters. Leigh Bardugo writes a morally grey man (and just morally grey people in general) better than almost anyone in the game, and I am OBSESSED with how well she did that here. Santángel is easily one of my new favorite all-time characters, and I also loved Luzia, and (maybe controversially?) Valentina. Even the characters I disliked were so delicately rendered and fascinating to read about, which is the mark of a truly great book in my opinion.

Finally, the level of detail and historical research here is INCREDIBLE and makes for a wonderfully immersive read. Highly HIGHLY recommend!

CW: Death/grief; sexual violence; physical violence/injury; torture

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narzibenoucdel's review

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dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A great book with characteristic Bardugo strengths of writing and character, but needed to be 100-200 pages longer to flesh out the intricacies and themes to their full potential

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aseel_reads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I don't really know how I feel about this?

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pewterwolf's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

Set in Spanish Golden Age, we follow Luzia, a scullion. She tries not to be seen, but she uses scraps of magic to make life a little easier. But when her mistress discovers that Luzia can perform little miracles, she demands that Luzia uses them to better the family’s social position. But what begins as simple amusements for the bored nobility takes a dark turn when disgraced secretary of the Spanish King, Antonio Pérez, and his familiar, Guillén Santángel, sees her and takes a dark interest in her.

Luzia seizes the chance to better her self, but as her notoriety grows, the danger of her Jewish blood grows as, if she gets found out, the Inquisition’s wrath will be unspeakable. She has to stay several steps ahead. But the rules are always changing in the Spanish court and not everyone gets out alive.

I think I have to finally admit to myself that historical fiction and me aren’t going to get along and I need to stop pushing this genre onto my TBR lists.

I struggle with them. This audiobook took me a month to get through. I started it the week of release, but I really struggled to connect with this. Plus, my brain was all over the place So I couldn’t really focus on this. But, when I did sit down and listen, I found myself bored and not connecting with the characters and the story.

The story felt very slow and quite heavy (at times) for me. I like stories to have some pace when it starts, but it felt as if it took an age for the plot to charge forward. If you are a fan of slower burn of a plot where you get to know the characters, this is for you. But I find I like to know characters when they are doing something or when the plot is moving.

While I wasn’t a fan of the story and the characters (they’re flawed characters, but not exactly likeable. I understood why they behaved the way they did, but I found it them frustrated and every time I found an element of them that I liked, something happened and I would be back at square one with this character), I am a fan of Leigh Bardugo’s writing and it fits so nicely with the audiobook’s narrator, Lauren Fortgang. I know she has read several other books by Bardugo, but this partnership works.

But this wasn’t for me. If you are a fan of historical fiction with an edge of magic, you should check it out. But be warned, it is a slow burn of a plot and can be heavy in places.

As for me, like I said earlier, I think I have to admit that historical fiction, while a genre I like dipping my toe in and out of, isn’t the genre for me. I do have some on my TBR but I have heard really positive things about them so going to take the risk, but am going to go into them with low expectations.

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madelinemartin's review against another edition

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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? It's complicated

4.5

Leigh Bardugo does it once again. This historical fantasy novel is unlike anything I’ve ever read. I liked that we got right into the main plot of the story. I enjoyed watching Luzia’s development throughout the plot and how Santangel helped her along on her journey. Luckily the book ended just as I hoped it would, and it was such a beautiful story <3

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jazhandz's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.75

From a pure craft standpoint, Leigh Bardugo’s writing is at a peak in this book. It’s sensory and rich and compelling. The character work is lovely. Where this book falls flat for me is the relationships - and not only the central relationship, but the entirety of the relationships, romantic and platonic and familial and antagonistic. None of them will stick with me in a meaningful way. Which is a shame! I think if this book had stronger relationships it would be an easy favorite. As it is, it was fine.

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