Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

35 reviews

queergoth_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-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

This was a wonderful story. It is beautifully crafted and was just a fantastic read. 


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paperbrownies's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring medium-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
- lgbtqiap+, ya fantasy, magic, west african-inspired fantasy, DIVERSE, found family, friends to lovers trope, royalty, badass mc, curses and betrayal 
-  m|f 
-  black mc, ace sc, and a diverse casting of poc characters, minor disability rep 

what other names do you call raybearer and why is it amazing and stunning and as cg drews says a 'ray of excellence'? bc it managed to evoke so many feelings in less than 400 pages (am in awe, honestly) and had me sticking to the edge of my seat in anticipation for what was about to happen next throughout the course of the book. THAT in my opinion is the best feeling ever!!! 
it has one of the most unique storylines ive read in a book with the most beautiful world building (it is intricate and felt so very real), descriptions, lores and setting, that i could not help but greedily devour the words and want for more!! 
the characters were amazing!! i love my ace king, dayo and as for the mc, i have so much love and respect for tarisai, she is strong, determined and a TOTAL badass!! 
i cannot recommend this book highly enough!! 😭😭 

cw: violence, child abuse, attempted murder, drugging, manipulation, gaslighting, on-page death, references to police violence, death of children, vomit. 

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mfieldshalva's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective 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


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kaziaroo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective medium-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? No

5.0


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nutmegandpumpkin's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful tense medium-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

5.0

I really really loved this book. I haven’t read a fantasy such as this in a while. The rich worldbuilding really brought the whole book to life. 
The cast of characters is not only diverse in skin color / ethnicity but also in sexualities, religion, and physical appearance. For instance, there is a character that is asexual, characters that have crushed on both female and male characters, a blind character, and a character that wears a headscarf.
Only thing about the book that was meh: sometimes it was a bit frustrating and had me rolling my eyes and yelling at the characters at some points for not noticing certain things that felt very obvious (however this happened only a couple of times and wasn’t enough for me to doc the rating).

Would definitely recommend!!


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anna_hepworth's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful medium-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? No

5.0

Highly recommended. Takes a number of fantasy tropes, mixes them around, and does some fascinating things. Technically, I guess this counts as YA because of the age of the protagonist, and it was marketed to me as YA. It is definitely one of those books doing fascinating things at the cutting edge of fantasy.

Many of my thoughts are spoilers, so I’m going to omit them here. On things that come up early enough that I feel okay commenting on them - the child as deliberately bred weapon is one I’ve seen before, but while it was the hook the story is hung on, it doesn’t limit the story, and there were aspects that I don’t think that I’ve seen before. Also, the way that The Lady, and the why of their story — particularly some of the early details that come out — are very chilling. 

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bybookandbone's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny 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? Yes

3.5

 It's hard to assign a star rating to Raybearer because there are several parts that are wonderful, and others that a, frankly, dreadful.

Raybearer start's off very weak and I was baffled at how it gets such glowing reviews. After Tar frees Jeet I finally connected with the book and began to really enjoy it. The characters and world began to gain a shape.
Unfortunately, there's too much telling and not enough showing, especially earlier on in the book. I felt that there are too many time jumps and the reader is supposed to just accept the very close relationships that developed in between. I don't get any proper sense of Dayo
other than him being vaguely kind, gentle and asexual
. I wish we got to know him better. He just seems to do things out of no where, with no sense if it would align with his characterization or not (because he doesn't have much). Kirah and Jeet are much stronger characters, the rest of the Eleven are less than names on a page. We are told how close they all are but we don't even know most of their names!

There's a muddled bit at the end
where Woo In takes Tar away from Dayo, for seemingly no proper reason. Yes there's a small story reason but it felt so forced and I think it was a waste of time.


Having said that. I really loved Tar as a protagonist. She's intelligent and cunning, and I mean genuinely. It's not something we are just told and expected to believe. Not like some protagonists based in a royal court. *cough* *cough* Jude

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puttingwingsonwords's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-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

5.0


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wrenxavier's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense 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

4.5


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apworden's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring medium-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

4.5


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