Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

La Sombra Del Viento by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

23 reviews

parkyparkpark's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexism, Physical abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Child death, Confinement, Vomit, Incest, Adult/minor relationship, War, Violence, Sexual harassment, Police brutality, Lesbophobia, Kidnapping, Gore, Grief, Dementia, Sexual content, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Terminal illness, Stalking, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Fire/Fire injury

annahelle's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

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

3.75

i really really enjoyed this book! although it was a little cheesy at times and i wouldn’t compare it to gabriel garcia marquez (as advertised on the book cover), i still had FUN! there’s definitely something to be said about the treatment of female characters. like i’m pretty sure it wouldn’t pass the bechdel test lol. a bit manic pixie dream girl vibes. and i dont just mean fernin’s silly sexual, womanzing tirades , bc i took that to be satire. idk i’m dr*nk on vacation and i had FUN okay. and really loved the main characters even tho i wished the women weren’t just love objects ! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse

Moderate: Incest, Transphobia, and Homophobia

Minor: Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Police brutality, Pedophilia, and Sexual violence

voelve's review against another edition

mysterious sad 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Child death, Grief, Homophobia, and Sexual violence

Minor: Death of parent

jeanniea's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense 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? No

4.75

Great storytelling. Similar storytelling style to that of erin morgenstern. Story picks up about halfway thru. I enjoyed the ending of the book! There were a few unexpected surprises in the plot.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Rape, Torture, Abortion, Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Abandonment, Alcohol, Child death, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, and Gun violence

half_bloodreader's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

Bilingual Review/Crítica Bilingue (🇬🇧 & 🇵🇹) 

🇬🇧 Written in the 1st person, past tense. Set in the 1st half of the 20th century, Franco's regime

Intrigue, mystery, books, Barcelona. What's there not to like? Or so I thought, but I ended with mixed feelings. 

It's historical fiction. There are scenes that reflect the chauvinist times, things that happen to women that are part of plot points. 
Except, there's language & violence used against women that doesn't add anything to the story, so it seems the author is taking pleasure out of tormenting women. 

A male character is physically & s exually assaulted, yet it's told in a ridiculous tone. I was intrigued, which is why I kept reading, but I can't ignore these recurring themes. 

Mc instantly falls in love with the women he's attracted to, no importance given to knowing them. These are all enigmatic, inscrutable, meaning they are as deep as a leaf. 
Otherwise, they are a reason for ridicule. 

Beware of Stereotype: blind person asks to touch strangers' faces 🙄

Mystery is almost entirely revealed in a letter conveniently left to the mc. 

Writing plays with the frontier between beautiful & pretentious to the point of eyeroll.

🇵🇹 Escrito na 1ª pessoa, passado. Situado na 1ª metade do Séc. XX, Espanha Franquista

Intriga, mistério, livros, Barcelona. O que há para não gostar? Pensei eu, mas no fim fiquei dividida. 

É ficção histórica. Há cenas que refletem os tempos machistas, coisas que acontecem a mulheres que fazem parte da trama. 
Excepto que há linguagem e violência usadas contra mulheres que não acrescentam nada à história, parece que o autor tirou prazer de atormentar mulheres. 

Um personagem masculino é agredido física & sexualmente, sendo tal contado em tom jocoso. Estava intrigada, por isso persisti, mas não posso simplesmente ignorar estes tópicos recorrentes. 

Cuidado com Estereótipo: pessoa cega pede para tocar na cara de estranhos 🙄

Protagonista apaixona-se instantaneamente pelas mulheres que lhe são atraentes, e pouca importa conhecê-las. Essas são todas enigmáticas, imperscrutáveis, ou seja têm a profundidade de uma folha. 
De contrário, são motivo de ridículo. 

Mistério é revelado quase todo numa carta convenientemente deixada ao protagonista.

A escrita brinca com a fronteira entre bela e pretensiosa a ponto de rolar os olhos. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia and Transphobia

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Incest, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual harassment, and Torture

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual violence

florafauna's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Incest, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Death, Homophobia, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Confinement

Minor: Chronic illness, Excrement, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Outing, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Torture, and War

lyricallit's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

Sigh. I was 1/3 of the way through and was befuddled as to where it was going. I really enjoyed the touches of magical realism but felt that style was abandoned in favor of gothic melodrama. I liked the way certain characters mirrored others in the past and the trope of authorship/stories, as the novel at times became a nesting doll of stories-within-stories.

Ultimately though I got really tired with the portrayal of women. All the women are secondary/tertiary characters who are usually victims who serve to further the mens' plots or to reveal a man's vile abuse. Especially since

MUCH of this heartbreak would have been avoided if Sophie had just  TOLD Julian who his biological father was! So... Cool. Let's just lay the blame there

. I am truly unclear as to the relevance of Clara Barceló to the overall story. She is an objectified fantasy to a teen boy with a savior complex (to "save" or care for a "blind girl"), who ultimately

becomes a bitter hag who can't even be around other women, presumably out of petty jealousy. Truly the book could have left her out completely and still attained its goals, so I am frustrated by what may just be an attempt to get back at a woman who scorned the author? And as for Bea, she is credited by Carax with saving his life and Daniel's but again, not sure how other than being the reason everyone was at the castle that night -- again, merely a convenient plot point.

 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Police brutality, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Violence

katieb_883's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, and Sexual violence

_suvi_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

5.0

A perfect book to get me back into reading. The beautiful world building tool me right into the windy streets of Barcelona. The story within a story of mystery, spooks and romance was so wonderfully written and addictive. If I would critisize something, it would be some of the female characters that were written quite one-dimensionally or objectifyingly. But on the other hand the story is in 1940s-1950s so it doesn’t greatly distract from the story either.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence

distilledreads's review against another edition

emotional mysterious sad medium-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

3.5

I really struggled with this book. I went into it with really high expectations, and therefore for the first two-thirds of it I was anxiously anticipating what makes this such a highly acclaimed read. The answer, for me at least, was the ending. The last third, and really the shift into Nuria’s perspective, saved this book for me and I found myself finally enjoying the story. While I could appreciate the writing and the plot up until that point, I wasn’t particularly entranced by the mystery and it felt like I was just plodding along; for that reason, I would give this book 3 ½ stars. 

The perspective is that of a teenage boy and is told in first-person, which at least partially was the reason I found it so hard to get sucked into this book. Since I felt distanced from the characters and the goings-on, it didn’t take much to jar me while reading and throw me out of the plot. Every asinine opinion on women, the fetishization of a “mulatto” woman, or the dismissive way sexual assault was casually sprinkled throughout the book was enough to disrupt my reading and fuel my distaste. 

Again, like I said, I can appreciate what Zafón was trying to achieve here in a literary sense. I would love to have properly analyzed this book in a classroom setting to better understand the nuance of mid-twentieth century Spain, rather than rely on my own haphazard understanding and research. 

“Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind.” 

This is a multi-generational story, with the actions of 20/30 years ago affecting and mirroring a younger generation. At its heart, there is a cautionary tale of second chances and the destruction that hate and prejudices carry. As well, there are beautiful and evocative lines. This is a book largely about a book, which naturally leads to beautiful phrases about storytelling, reading, and human nature. 

“The words with which a child’s heart is poisoned, through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.” 

Despite my mixed experience of it, I am glad that I finally read The Shadow of the Wind. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit