Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

3 reviews

18soft_green's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-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

4/5

This is a good book, unfortunately.

I say it this way because a lot of the time it felt like the author was being pretentious in her flowery style and drama. The POV switches were painful and Isaac is my least favorite type of character and Bellatine is so fucking annoying! And her statue love interest is worse! Baba Yaga herself was very interesting but her great, great, great, great grandkids are the worst! In fact, it's as if Nethercotte took my least favorite types of characters, added some quirks, and dumped them into a story.

But the story is good! The grief is real, the magic is weird, the contradictions are mysterious, the walking house is fantastic! The angst, my friends! It's such good angst! Not the relationship angst, that shit was boring as hell and annoying, but the life angst, the way the characters felt about themselves, that was the true sauce.

It also felt so fucking weird that Nethercotte constantly acknowledged the atrocities of the land. Maybe that's just my privilege talking but it felt so out of place and character for the Yaga siblings. Like, this book isn't addressing those topics so why is it bringing them up. I care very much about those issues but it felt like the story was only bringing them up out of obligation and personal responsibility rather than because it was important to the story. It was awkward for me.

4/5 I would not recommend unless the situation truly called on THIS particular book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Mental illness, and Police brutality

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Cultural appropriation, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, and War

Minor: Animal death, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Antisemitism, Child death, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Homophobia, and Self harm

laurareads87's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

3.5

I liked a lot about this book.  I found the writing beautiful, and I feel like the author has handled serious and difficult themes -- intergenerational trauma especially -- very well.  I liked the last quarter of the book best, and found that while some questions were left unanswered, the ending was absolutely a satisfying conclusion.  I am not the most versed in Jewish myth, but I appreciated how it was interwoven into the story from what I do know; the historically informed chapters of the story are at times difficult reading, but are very, very well done.  What really didn't work for me was one of the two main contemporary characters (several other reviewers have gotten at why); I found Isaac a very frustrating character, and did not like the way the Isaac/Benji storyline in particular was written like it took place in a much earlier time period (Great Depression, perhaps?) than it did.
<i>Content warnings:</i> Antisemitism, genocide, murder, grief, self harm, blood, suicidal thoughts, animal death, animal cruelty, fire/fire injury, xenophobia, death, child death, violence

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Blood, Child death, Death, Grief, Murder, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Gore

Minor: Alcohol

victoriousbookworm's review against another edition

adventurous emotional slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Animal death, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Antisemitism, War, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Abandonment