Reviews with content warning for Violence - Furia

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez

17 reviews

karyboobooks's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense 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

This book is just… I have no words for the way this book took me back to memories of playing fútbol as a little girl in Colombia & the emotions that came with it. Although the books takes place in Argentina, the descriptions of the houses, streets, views, vendors, children asking for help/donations in buses & other things felt soooo much like being taken back home to Colombia. These are truly things that you couldn’t explain to someone who hadn’t experienced them first hand.

No book has ever made me feel so close to home while breaking my heart apart with the reminders of all the ugly parts mi tierra has. Some of the topics addressed in this book are very hard but they’re SO real! I’ve felt the exact things this book touches on & it only makes it that much more heartfelt.

I try to be a big supporter of Latina/Latino authors & honestly this book was one of the most heartbreaking positive surprises I’ve had with books as I hadn’t seen or heard anything about it before picking it up. This story will live in my heart forever, truly.

I’d recommend this book to absolutely EVERYBODY but especially to my fellow Latinas who may have felt the need to dim their light, hide their goals & dreams or been told to reduce themselves to a smaller version of who they truly are simply because we seem like too much & we call attention on to ourselves which could make us seem disrespectful at or home or a target when we leave our house. Let us all break the generational cycles we’ve been told to continue.

¡Ni Una Menos! ¡Vivas Nos Queremos!

Content Warnings

amberinpieces's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

writingcaia's review

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted tense medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

This is the book I didn’t know I needed.
A powerful story that deals with so much from domestic violence, violence against women, repeating cycles, breaking cycles, poverty, to friendship, love, women empowerment, and fútbol.
Furia, is Camila, a girl who dreams of being a futbolera (soccer player) something forbidden by law in Argentina just decades before. But, she’s lying to everyone about it, except her brother, a famous player, but not as good as she can can be even if money and fame wise no women will ever reach it. And, there are still more lies keeping her away from her truths.
Her lies are protection, from a family home that is corrosive. Her mother and father have a strained relationship and the threat of violence is impeding in Camila’s home, even her brother speaks up as if violence against women was normal, and there’s also violence outside and all around her, girls go missing everyday, and every other day a women is killed by a men.
Her parents will never support her, even her mom, a women who should fight for her, to break the cycle seems stuck and erased.
Then there’s Diego her childhood friend and love, who’s also a football player now playing in Italy, famous and rich, but he has come back to woe her and confuse her and make her love him again, still she’s trying to keep her goal of being a professional player in her mind and not get lost in him.
But, lies and truths, desires and fears will all be tested and exposed.
Camila has to decide if she is Furia or not, and if she has the resolve to be honest and break the cycle.
Absolutely adored it!
The writing is accessible and engaging, the pages fly by, the passion for the game and for family and love are all there and brilliantly portrayed, I felt everything as if I was Camila and I’d love to have kept reading about her and the children of Argentina who want to break the cycles, especially the girls.

¡Ni una menos! ¡Vivas nos queremos!

Content Warnings

leahkarge's review against another edition

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adventurous 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

4.0

Content Warnings

camillej's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring 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? No

4.0

Content Warnings

beautifulpaxielreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

Lies have short legs.

What a big-hearted roar of a novel this is.

In Furia, Yamile Saied Méndez skilfully and explosively explores the intersection between misogyny and football (soccer as we know it in Australia, fútbol in Spanish) that exists in Argentina.

On the pitch playing for her women's team, Camila is the fearless, brilliant "La Furia". Off the pitch, however, life is a bit more complicated. As well as the very real threat she faces just by walking home after dark, she has to deal with her overbearing, bullying father, her kind but cynical mother, and her elder brother Pablo, whose career in the professional men's league feels like a shadow she can't escape from under.

Then there's Diego, her childhood sweetheart - who has returned home for a visit after a dazzling career and international fame at the Juventus club in Italy. Now that he's back, he wants to pick up where he and Camila left off - but does she feel the same?

I'll confess that at first, I had a hard time getting into this one. There are a lot of Spanish words and phrases sprinkled throughout Furia, and I constantly felt the need to go and look up anything I didn't understand. But after a while, I let this urge go (mostly) and my reading experience was so much better for it.

I learned so much from reading this book. Firstly, I had no idea how multicultural Argentina was - Camila herself is of mixed Palestinian, Spanish, and Eastern European heritage (much like the author herself), and other characters are of Chinese and Indian ethnicity - and there are probably others which I don't remember. And the sense of place you get - as well as the Spanish language intermixing that I already mentioned - is really well done.

I had heard that gender-based violence (and murder) is a huge problem across Latin America (as it is in many other parts of the world), and it is in depicting this issue (and the attitudes enabling it) that Saied Méndez really excels. From casual misogyny to systemic, from domestic violence to

the murder of a young girl

, it's all here - and I appreciate that the author didn't shy away from the topic but confronted it head-on.

Diego was a sweetheart, and the way Saied Méndez writes him, it is easy to see why Camila

falls for him all over again

. He's effortlessly charming, down-to-earth, and caring. I was thinking that maybe he was a little too perfect, but towards the end of the novel, when

he revealed that he had come back to take Camila back with him to Italy

made him a bit more realistic to me.

Furia is a novel that wears its heart on the sleeve of a fútbol jersey - and that's a good thing.

Content Warnings