Reviews with content warning for Incest - The Bread the Devil Knead

Reviews tagging 'Incest'

The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini

134 reviews

paochavezgt's review

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dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

3.25

Be careful if you choose to read this book. It can be very triggering. It is heart wrenching.

This was an excruciating read. I feel physically and emotionally ill. By all means I understand how powerful her writing and storytelling is. There are certain topics and storylines I'm simply not able to digest properly. The dread that i feel for Ali is uncanny, I hope she gets to surround herself with kind women, from this point forward. Although, I do question wether a victim of abuse would still enjoy certain things from their abuser, I believe reading this experience as hard as it is, gives a voice to survivors. Not a feminist voice, if I might say.

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tombomp's review

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Big trigger warnings for domestic violence, rape, child abuse, an *explicit* child sexual abuse scene, Spoilerincest. All of which are intense and there are constant scenes throughout the book.

I think it's hard to put my thoughts together about this. It's a cavalcade of trauma and abuse and then it just ends so... neatly? Like, not that the scars are resolved obviously. But it feels weird - although even saying that feels wrong, as if I'm suggesting that actually the trauma should have carried on, which is also not what I meant.

I think part of it is that the neat ending owes very little to the actions of the main character in the "present day" - there's connections formed in childhood that only just come back around all at once and we only see bits and pieces of how they happened and Spoilera loose friendship where the other person seemingly took it upon herself to get the MC's abusive violent boyfriend shot in a way that framed him as the shooter? it's a little vague at the end exactly what happened and how much knowledge people had but it's heavily implied imo. That's not bad exactly - everyone needs support and it's good to show stuff happening as a group effort, obviously. It more just adds to the sense that things wrapped up due purely to coincidence than anything else. Which... again I guess that's not that inaccurate to real life. So again I can't exactly mark it down for that.

I think the explicit child sexual abuse scene really threw me for a loop and eclipsed everything else about the book. Not suggesting it's wrong to portray it, just it was so intense (even though I had to skim it) that I couldn't really get settled about how I feel about the book due to feeling so upset and lost reading that.

I will say as an obvious unalloyed good thing: the Trinidadian Creole writing style is really good and I loved reading it. It's an incredibly readable book that's quite compelling

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marygray149's review

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dark emotional inspiring 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

4.0

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t33_'s review

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dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

WOW.
Sad, intense, empowering, womanhood, emotional. I don’t think I’ve ever read something like this before but I am glad that I have. My God, this book was something else! I barely write reviews and I don’t give many books 5 stars but this story was impeccable.

10/10 across the board!

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alexiconic's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

4.75

Original and beautiful, a truly heart wrenching exploration of the life of someone who has achieved a lot, but had to come from hell to do so (picking up some distorted habits and thoughts along the way). Some elements were just a little too much for me, but I wasn’t nearly as put off as I would have expected if you had told me about it before.

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kefeshe's review

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Absolutely stunning writing but it was intense! That's the best way I could describe it, everything this woman experiences is laid out beautifully in all its ugly detail. I've not read many Trini authors, but it's was lovely to read the familiar accent, foods and places throughout!

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leahb88's review

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dark emotional reflective sad 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

5.0

Wow what an amazing book. Reading the Trinidadian Creole took a moment to get used to, but it added so much! Alethea’s story is heartbreaking but I loved reflecting on her past and watching her grow in the present throughout the book. Highly recommend

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