Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

3 reviews

la_mdzh's review

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Lesbophobia and Homophobia

a little weirded out by how the author roped together graphic quasi-bestiality with the reveal of a character's homosexuality, like we were expected to react simultaneously (and similarly) to one sister fucking a half goat creature and the other fucking women.

hprimo12's review

medium-paced

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

This book was supposed to be a gritty retelling of a fairytale, but the topics that made it "gritty" were not handled well and left me hating the main character. I did not find any part of the story compelling, and it pained me to finish it. I stongly do not recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Cultural appropriation, Death, Domestic abuse, Antisemitism, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Incest, Racism, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Violence, and Xenophobia

The "love" story part of this book was only really based on trauma bonding, as the characters frankly do not really spend much time together before being madly in love. Additionally, the story is seemingly centered on how much the main character is suffering at the hands of her sisters despite the fact that they are also being abused by her father. Granted they suffer a different kind of abuse, but the author and the main character make no mention of this at all. To the point where the main character kills one of her sister and shows no remorse. The last thing that I will say is that I found any LGBT+ representation to be layered in negative stereotypes or villainized. There are many other things that I could point out about the world or the overtly sexualized situations, but I don't want to give this book much more thought.

maplewrites's review

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

Look, like, I liked it. I do not think it is a good book though. Like the core themes of the book were good, but all the set dressing sort of fought against it? The discussions of monsters and morality and freedom, all of it good. But pretty much everything that wasn't inherent to telling the story that was trying to be told, it wasn't great. Like the sheer amount of sexism that this book repeats over and over and over again, is just not worth the way that it is passively resolved. Like it isn't a sexist book, it's just got sexism in it in such quantities that while it could theoretically have aided the narrative, it didn't really. 
This is a very spewing from the mind sort of review. 
The things that the synopsis promised were there, but they were so deeply hidden by the set dressing. The things that I liked about the book I felt like I had to push past curtain after curtain after curtain to get to. 
I liked it in the end. I liked what it was at its core. I did not like the rest of it. 

One of the big flaws was that the book was very oversexualized. Like, sure the main character is repressed bc of her horrible father, but... Just it's sooo much. The talk of being aroused and breasts and the obsession with virginity being linked to purity. Even though the whole virginity thing is like, dismantled by the end, it still sucked. Like the amount of talk of breasts and sex is really really annoying. It definitely gets in the way of the story too. It slows the book down an incredible amount. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Child abuse

Moderate: Misogyny, Murder, Racism, Sexism, Self harm, and Sexual assault

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Homophobia