Reviews with content warning for Rape - Conjure Women

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

57 reviews

foreverinastory's review against another edition

challenging emotional slow-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

4.0

Rep: Black female MC, Black/biracial male love interest, Black and biracial supporting cast.

CWs: Abortion, alcohol consumption, alcoholism, blood, death/death of parent, domestic abuse, fire, infidelity, injury/injury detail, medical content, miscarriage/stillbirth, misogyny, murder, pregnancy, racial slurs, racism, rape, consensual sexual content, slavery, violence, war. Moderate: gore, torture, lynching.

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laurareads87's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense 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

5.0

Deeply moving and beautifully written, Conjure Women follows Rue, a young woman who, following in her mother's footsteps, grows up to be a healer and conjurer. The story takes place on a plantation and alternates chapter to chapter between just prior to the Civil War ('Slaverytime') and just after ('Freedomtime'); the focus is on Rue, her mother May Belle, and their relationships with other (formerly) enslaved people as well as with the plantation owner's daughter. I love so much about this book: Atakora's writing is evocative, the setting is very clearly established, the characters are complex and well-developed, and the relationship dynamics are compelling. Atakora describes the historical research she conducted for this book in the afterword, and it really shows in the novel itself in the best possible way. Conjure Women is an incredible novel and I cannot wait to read more from Afia Atakora.
<i>Content warnings:</i> this novel is set during and just after slavery in the American South and, as such, depicts the horrors of slavery: murder, violence, lynching, rape, torture, death of children, miscarriage, racism, misogyny, forcible confinement, medical violence

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nilanthi's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective slow-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

4.5

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arminam's review against another edition

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medium-paced

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

4.0

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leah_alexandra's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious sad

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

4.0

I thought this story was told beautifully and was really well-executed. I liked how the bulk of the story takes place in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. It was really interesting to see how much changed for these people, but still how much was the same.

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thecozyarchivist's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Read this for my book club, and I hate to say it but if it wasn’t for said book club, I would have DNFed. I wasn’t a big fan of the story jumping around back and forth between Rue’s childhood and adulthood. I get that it was meant to build anticipation but it just caused confusion. I found myself just not really paying attention and often getting lost as to what part of the story we were at.

This book also has so much black pain as its focus, and I was really just waiting for these characters to get some kind of reprieve. I read books with heavy topics all the time, but there was no balance here, just pain on top of pain for every character. Like when you think things can’t get worse, they get worse. 😕

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