Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

45 reviews

alexiasophii's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Wow.
This is a hefty book, before anything else, please be careful of the content warnings, they are NOT a lie or minimized, this is a very heavy, graphic and pain-ridden book. However, it is incredible. It's amazingly sad, amazingly painful, but amazing nonetheless. 
I might come back and do a bigger review later because I'm still gathering my thoughts, but I really enjoyed this book (I had a nightmare related to this book, that's how well-written it is!) and I'm planning on reading the sequel as soon as possible! 

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franzeerdbeerbacke's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This book needs a trigger warning.

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irgendwieantonia's review

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adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0


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condygurl's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

Trigger warning!  There are quite a few scenes regarding violence towards children and women, these take the forms of not only physical abuse, but also rape, molestation, and murder.

This is a story of the war between the Greeks and Troy due to Helen.  Helen plays a very minor role in the story.

The story is from the perspective of a captured woman who once was going to be Queen, but instead becomes the slave to the most fierce warrior of all time.

The only part I was truly upset about is the author silencing the girls.  The beginning starts out very strong, but then we switch POV, and poof, out goes the female voice, and in comes the crazy male voice.  It also got a bit repetitive in the camp, but I guess that is par for the course because how different is daily living from day to day when you are a slave?

Very good story but I think it could have been better if the author stuck with one pov.

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queen_of_the_rats's review

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dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0


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emilyandthewhippet's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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michellewalsh's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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guivx5's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

God, this took me ELEVEN days to read. Thank God it’s over

“The Silence of The Girls” relies on the famous Iliad story, a tale with so many different takes and interpretations that it has come to be known, even if just a bit, by everyone. I myself have started to enjoy stories based on greek epics when I first read Madeline Miller’s books. So I had high hopes on this one. And, honestly, it had everything to be really good. The dense characters; the abuses inflicted towards women, usually omitted in retellings; a rich scenario to explore. It had the bread and cheese, and it could’ve been a hell of a lunch. If the writing wasn’t such a slog.

Look, I’ve really tried to like this one. I really did. But getting through the chapters turned into a battle. The author writes like this, using commas repeatedly through the paragraphs, often turning phrases into a mess, a big mess, of convoluted information, agonizing confusion, crossing each other, making the long paragraphs often composed of one or two sentences. It. Is. Really. Exhausting. This, mixed with the questionable narrative choices, made this book the biggest slog for me.

Overall, it’s The Iliad in some way, so it’s good in some way, although I do feel that this book is not so friendly towards people who don’t have much knowledge about the original story. It’s sad it turned out this way for me.

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sophiemag's review

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0


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owlbear425's review

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slow-paced

3.25


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