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Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'
Горбун лорда Кромвеля by Кристофер Джон Сэнсом, C.J. Sansom
7 reviews
the_cheerful_necromancer's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A pretty good Historical Fiction. A few historical inaccuracies here and there, mostly in the use of language, but I doubt the layman reader would notice, so it doesn't really matter. The mystery was pretty solid, too, and it resolved itself satisfyingly enough. Worth a look, I'd say.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, and Murder
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Misogyny, and Racism
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Child death
Reader beware that this book is set in the Tudor era, and as such, every minority character is going to have a pretty bad time. Our POV character, fortunately, is not violently bigoted, but he is a "product of his time" even so.buildingtaste's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A well-paced mystery with an immersive setting. The final twists got a little messy, but I am looking forward to future Shardlake stories. Also quite a diverse bunch for 2003.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Torture, Blood, Murder, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, and Animal death
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Misogyny
Not at all in the cozy camp of mysteries. Lakes of blood and extensive torture, corruption, abuse, etc.cin19's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Murder, Medical content, and Death
Moderate: Mental illness, Torture, Sexual harassment, Religious bigotry, Racism, Homophobia, and Violence
thelassinlinen's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Religious bigotry, Violence, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Bullying, Stalking, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual harassment, Homophobia, Death, Forced institutionalization, Misogyny, Sexual content, Medical content, Murder, Torture, and Sexual assault
sas_lk's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-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
4.5
very unexpected, but really liked it
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Homophobia, Sexism, and Racism
Minor: Sexual harassment
prashiie's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
The first book of the Shardlake series. It takes us back to the 16th century, during the reign of King Henry VIII after Queen Jane just died. Personally, I enjoy this time period a lot! I've mainly seen the English Reformation from the point of view of the royals, but haven't really dived into what that meant for the citizens, how the reformation took place.
Thomas Cromwell sends Matthew Shardlake to a monastery to investigate the murder of master Singleton, a commissioner Lord Cromwell sent before. Matthew is described to be a hunchback. In earlier times, people believed that touching a hunchback will bring ill-fortune, which I found very sad. He can be very generous at some times, but also harsh, especially towards people he envies. I really liked his character! He wasn't without his flaws and that brings a lot of realism to the story. This book also brought to light a lot of the hypocrisy and scams of the Catholic church and it was also interesting to see the state of medicine at that time, mentions of black bile etc.
The first book of the Shardlake series. It takes us back to the 16th century, during the reign of King Henry VIII after Queen Jane just died. Personally, I enjoy this time period a lot! I've mainly seen the English Reformation from the POV of the royals, but haven't really dived into what that meant for the citizens, how the reformation took place. Thomas Cromwell sends Matthew Shardlake to a monastery to investigate the murder of master Singleton, a commissioner Lord Cromwell sent before.
A lot of the hypocrisy and scams of the Catholic church were described in this book. It's also interesting to see the state of medicine at that time, mentions of black bile etc. Matthew is described to be a hunchback. In earlier times, people believed that touching a hunchback will bring ill-fortune. He can be very generous at some times, but also harsh especially towards people he envies. I really liked his character! He wasn't without his flaws and that brings a lot of realism to the story.
Matthew starts off with Lord Cromwell and Mark Poer at his side, but ends up alone. At the beginning he was a convinced reformist, but at the end of the book he sees both sides and decides to be neither a reformist nor a papist. The killer is shown to be the former lover of Mark Smeaton, the boy who got wrongly executed for treason and adultery with Queen Anne. He was the scapegoat and Alice decided to get revenge. Shardlake always thought Lord Cromwell to behave morally and was happy to be a part of the Reformation. But everything that happened showed him that it isn't black or white, Cromwell wants to see results by any means necessary. Eventually Shardlake's firm believes are also dissolved.
A lot of the hypocrisy and scams of the Catholic church were described in this book. It's also interesting to see the state of medicine at that time, mentions of black bile etc. Matthew is described to be a hunchback. In earlier times, people believed that touching a hunchback will bring ill-fortune. He can be very generous at some times, but also harsh especially towards people he envies. I really liked his character! He wasn't without his flaws and that brings a lot of realism to the story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Bullying, Animal death, and Murder
Moderate: Animal cruelty
Minor: Violence and Sexual harassment
dimins's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
3.75 stars. It's a bit of a weird rating but felt the most right. Dissolution had its flaws and had a little bit of some pre-2010 trappings, but ultimately I weirdly enjoyed myself throughout it all and may be continuing the series. I want to give a shout-out to Anton Lesser who narratd the abridged audiobook. His performance of the story was a huge factor in pulling me into the story at the beginning before the action starts.
Where Sansom shines is really the historical context of the story. He's apparently got some degrees in English history and it shows. Sansom goes into a visceral degree of detail about the sights, the sounds, and the smells of 16th century England, particularly London. The historical context of the English Reformation and the clashing of the Roman Catholic Church and the burgeoning Protestants in royal favour, both struggling with corruption within its ranks, was very well done and immersive. The first few chapters do take some time to really get things going though, and I almost DNFed at some points.
The central mystery, however, reads like text-based RPG. This isn't to say that it was unenjoyable. I weirdly liked it, but maybe it's because I like text-based RPGs to begin with. When our crime-solving hero Shardlake interrogates other characters, it's a very straightforward to-and-fro dialogue, like: "What were you doing in the infirmary?" "I was mixing herbs." "Who were you mixing it for?" "Brother Francis complained of a sore leg, so I was mixing it up for him." The above is completely imaginary dialogue, but that's basically how most interrogations went in the whole book. Once again, I didn't mind this style at all and I can't explain why.
I'm on the fence about our hero Shardlake. In some areas, he seems like a sympathetic character with a moral compass that most of the other characters around him lack, and is therefore worth rooting for. He also has some type of spinal deformity that makes him a hunchback, something that affects the way characters interact with him and also his own perspective about people and himself. What really annoyed me about him wasthe way he treated Mark and Alice. I didn't mind him developing a fascination for Alice, and it might've been fun if Alice had fallen in love with Matthew instead, but then when it's clear that Alice did not have romantic affection for Matthew but instead was into Mark, Matthew behaved in a bit of a spiteful jealous hypocritical way. The way he sought to change Mark's mind by representing to him the fact that Alice is a servant and therefore not "worthy" of him, but then turning around and pining after Alice himself and feeling happy whenever she said anything remotely sympathetic or comforting to him. It just felt so blegh. What redeemed it a bit for me was that at least Matthew admitted to himself that he <i>was</i> being a hypocrite, and it wasn't smoothed over in the narrative.
The book also brings us Brother Guy who is described as being a "Moor". I can't recall off the top of my head now where he's supposed to come from, but he's a brown-skinned Catholic monk in England, so that's a pretty interesting and diverse choice to make for a pre-2010 book. I liked Brother Guy's interaction with Shardlake, and he's easily my favourite character in the cast. Of all the monks in the monastery, only Brother Guy seems to act and behave like he's a religious fellow. Every other monk in this one has some pretty atrocious behaviour.
On the treatment of certain characters:I was really, really worried at one point when suspicion was cast upon Brother Guy. If the only person of colour in the cast ends up being the ultimate villain and murderer, it would certainly have pulled my rating of this book down a few notches. I was therefore incredibly happy that Brother Guy remained the only role model of the cast here, perhaps even more commendably so than Matthew Shardlake himself. Another character I was really worried about was Brother Gabriel. I'm not a fan of the trope where the only queer character is represented as being perverse, depraved, and cowardly. Gabriel does get a bit of a redemption in the end when he sacrifices himself to save Matthew, but I could've done without the whole "secret voyeur jerking himself off to other men" thing that was ascribed to him. We do definitely have a bit of balance because the other monks were said to be lusting over women and sexually harrassing servant girls like Orphan and Alice, so Gabriel's not the only sexually depraved one here but yeah, still.
Overall, an enjoyable historical mystery which I'm keen to continue.
Where Sansom shines is really the historical context of the story. He's apparently got some degrees in English history and it shows. Sansom goes into a visceral degree of detail about the sights, the sounds, and the smells of 16th century England, particularly London. The historical context of the English Reformation and the clashing of the Roman Catholic Church and the burgeoning Protestants in royal favour, both struggling with corruption within its ranks, was very well done and immersive. The first few chapters do take some time to really get things going though, and I almost DNFed at some points.
The central mystery, however, reads like text-based RPG. This isn't to say that it was unenjoyable. I weirdly liked it, but maybe it's because I like text-based RPGs to begin with. When our crime-solving hero Shardlake interrogates other characters, it's a very straightforward to-and-fro dialogue, like: "What were you doing in the infirmary?" "I was mixing herbs." "Who were you mixing it for?" "Brother Francis complained of a sore leg, so I was mixing it up for him." The above is completely imaginary dialogue, but that's basically how most interrogations went in the whole book. Once again, I didn't mind this style at all and I can't explain why.
I'm on the fence about our hero Shardlake. In some areas, he seems like a sympathetic character with a moral compass that most of the other characters around him lack, and is therefore worth rooting for. He also has some type of spinal deformity that makes him a hunchback, something that affects the way characters interact with him and also his own perspective about people and himself. What really annoyed me about him was
The book also brings us Brother Guy who is described as being a "Moor". I can't recall off the top of my head now where he's supposed to come from, but he's a brown-skinned Catholic monk in England, so that's a pretty interesting and diverse choice to make for a pre-2010 book. I liked Brother Guy's interaction with Shardlake, and he's easily my favourite character in the cast. Of all the monks in the monastery, only Brother Guy seems to act and behave like he's a religious fellow. Every other monk in this one has some pretty atrocious behaviour.
On the treatment of certain characters:
Overall, an enjoyable historical mystery which I'm keen to continue.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Murder, Homophobia, Torture, and Ableism
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Gore, and Fatphobia
Minor: Racism
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