Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

13 reviews

kathleendayle's review

dark sad slow-paced

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

1.5

In concept, SUCH a fascinating idea. In execution, poorly done. The story felt disjointed, and characters inadequately developed. Because there wasn’t enough differentiation in characters’ voices, I found it difficult to keep all the names and relationships straight. The plot twist felt like it came out of absolutely nowhere (but not in a good way). I wanted to like this book, wanted it to be a novel exploration of race and colorism entwined with a modern retelling of a classic fairy tale, but mostly I just felt confused the whole way through. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Racism, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Domestic abuse, Transphobia, Deadnaming, and Rape

lynssss's review

emotional mysterious relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Listened to the audiobook which made it enjoyable to listen to the narrators' voices and accents. But as the book and it's parts are written in first person the accents really stay with the characters who are "narrating" their parts and don't deviate. I enjoyed the end of the book when there are a lot of characters converging in one scene but there was little payoff after these scenes and the action fell rapidly after this. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Torture, Hate crime, and Mental illness

Minor: Rape and Lesbophobia

msradiosilence's review

0.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Transphobia, Deadnaming, Abandonment, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Cursing, and Racism

Moderate: Abortion, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Alcoholism

Minor: Pregnancy and Rape

kenrya's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

The writing is great, but this felt unfinished. Loose ends abound and the choice of narrator for what this story ended up being was poor, to say the least. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Transphobia, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Racism, Rape, Death, Child abuse, Classism, Deadnaming, Sexual assault, Violence, Abortion, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Physical abuse

jesticulate's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

1.0

I am furious about this book. I loved the writing and found myself thinking deeply the whole way through. And then the whole book ends with a terrible 30 page bullshit transphobic ending. It’s incredibly insulting and disgusting. Wow. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Transphobia, and Racism

Minor: Fatphobia, Sexual assault, Rape, Classism, Abortion, Alcohol, Dementia, Death of parent, Stalking, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

hardbackednooks's review

The flap/description of this book ruined the "big reveal" of the first half of the book and the character dynamics made me wildly uncomfortable, which I think was intentional. I just couldn't stand to read more of it. Also saw in some spoilered reviews that one of the characters is later revealed to be trans and their story and transness in general is handled very poorly. Glad I didn't finish it, honestly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Animal cruelty, Racism, Physical abuse, Animal death, and Transphobia

thebakerbookworm's review

challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Though this is described as a Snow White retelling, it is very very loosely based on Snow White. I'm not really sure it even qualifies as a retelling beyond the fact that there is a character named Snow and she has a stepmother.

Anyways, it was still an interesting premise. We follow Boy for most of the book, as she escapes a bad situation and makes her own way in the world. It was hard to get a true handle on any of the characters because none of them are super reliable as narrators. The truth seems very much subjective in this story. I liked Boy though, and her relationship with Snow and I thought there were a lot of cool things being done, particularly this mirror theme that was happening. The story dabbled with being fantasy and kind of leaves it up to the reader to decide if it's fantasy or if certain things are only happening in a character's mind. Like I said, the truth was very much up for debate. There's also themes of race and passing that get explored.

The book takes a turn about halfway through and we get Bird's perspective, which I enjoyed. I did feel that the relationship between Boy and Snow was put on the back burner though, and is no longer really delved into or developed for the rest of the book. It almost felt like all these characters were being seen from a distance; just when I thought we were getting close to one, it would turn out to be a trick and they were still really far away. Or I just couldn't trust what I was seeing/being told by said character.

And then the last twentyish pages happened, and it was not good. This may be considered a spoiler but I think it's important to know going in—an abusive character is revealed to be trans and it's heavily implied that they are trans because of a traumatic event, and when another character finds this out, they are determined to rebuild their relationship with them and "fix" them. And then the book just ends, very abruptly. I read this book for my book club, and when we discussed it, we could not figure out why the author included this last-minute storyline or what purpose it served beyond being problematic. We were also unable to find any author interviews that discussed it, so I'm left just feeling frustrated with this ending.

An overall interesting premise and story with a terrible ending. If you do pick this up, I recommend stopping about 90% of the way through.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Racism, and Transphobia

sadie26w's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

2.5

This book ends very poorly

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Violence, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Child abuse

Moderate: Lesbophobia

Minor: Addiction

keenanmaree's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, and Transphobia

aseel_reads's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

i 👏🏼 do 👏🏼 not 👏🏼 understand 👏🏼

this is the second book I have read by this author and I am marginally less confused with this than the other (gingerbread) 

what I actually liked (or respect) was the writing. it felt quite fairytale in that I don't really understand the purpose of the story at all. it was enticing and I kept wanting to read it. however, I felt like bad things were written in a way that made them feel less bad, so I kept waiting for the real bad point to happen (the other shoe to drop), and it never really happened... 

i liked the inclusion of colourism but I really did not understand the father plot... and the characters were one dimensional (??) flat (??), i don't know how to explain it, they just didn't feel real (again like a fairytale). 

definitely wouldn't recommend, for the triggers and confusion 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Racism

Moderate: Abortion, Bullying, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Stalking, and Transphobia