Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis

14 reviews

ghostlyprince's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Trafficking, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Misogyny, Murder, Drug use, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Rape, Blood, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Suicide attempt, Medical content, Suicide, and Infertility

kodiex's review

challenging dark sad tense 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Blood, and Misogyny

Moderate: Alcohol, Colonisation, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Addiction, Confinement, Infertility, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Violence, Vomit, and Trafficking

Minor: Infertility, Suicide, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Torture, and Medical trauma

carolined314's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Escaping to freedom, in an action-packed series of events, learning one's own agency, choosing friendship, and so much more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Confinement, Abandonment, Gun violence, Violence, Xenophobia, and Trafficking

Moderate: Classism, Drug use, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Grief, Colonisation, and Addiction

Minor: Gaslighting

kell_xavi's review

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

4.0

Fantastic story of survival and sisterhood among five teenage girls who escape sex trafficking into a fantasy wild west landscape of saloons and forests and robberies (by them) and horse-riding and mining and dust. Davis writes well, with good pacing and style all the way through, save a few too many “here’s what we learned along the way” moments near the end. Her characters are bright and real, with Aster and Violet standing out in particular in the thick darkness of their emotions. It’s a good group to follow. I wasn’t sure why the girls continued using their welcome house names after they’d left, as it’s not really explained and didn’t feel quite right, but I was satisfied by most everything else in the pages of this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Gun violence, Trafficking, and Misogyny

Moderate: Drug use, Cursing, Confinement, Torture, Murder, and Addiction

Minor: Medical trauma, Emotional abuse, and Death of parent

letsgolesbians's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

the diverse baseline challenge gave me a reason to finally reread the good luck girls by charlotte nicole davis, a fantasy western in which teenage girls take back their autonomy. 

on their sixteenth birthday/luck night, daybreak girl become night rise girls aka good luck girls and go from cleaning and cooking etc to being sex workers for the welcome house. the opening chapter takes place on clementine’s luck night, wherein she kills her brag (the word used for welcome house clients) because he chokes her. clem runs away with her older sister aster and three girls from the welcome house: tansy and mallow, who are younger than clem and have not been forced into sex work yet, and violet, who is aster’s age and the pet of the welcome house because she was born there. this world doesn’t have the same race and ethnicity descriptions we do, but clem and astrid are Black (astrid is on this cover), tansy is described as a light brown, mallow is said to have white skin and freckles and is indigenous, and violet is white. 

i’m not going to try to explain the whole world and magic system, but here are some important pieces. there are spirits with varying levels of violence and men who can control the minds of the good luck girls through the tattooed “favors” on their necks, on top of a system of oppression similar to the capitalistic hellscape we’re in now. people work themselves to death in mines to pay off their debts, families sell their daughters to welcome houses to pay off debts, and when the girls run away, they’re running into a violent world that still feels like a better option than staying in the welcome house. 

their destination is lady ghost, who can remove their favors from their necks which will give them a chance to start over. they befriend a guy named zee and find an underground (literally) network of people whose goal is to build through the network of abandoned mines until they’re able to reach outside of arketta. tansy and mallow are sapphics and are able to be together when they’re all on the run, and neither violet or aster are pushed into a love story. 

there were a few times i thought it was unrealistic how quickly characters recovered from injuries, but other than that i really enjoyed rereading this and am going to see if the library has the sequel. 

photo posted at TheSelfishSapphic on ig:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C3tTRDSPtg1/?igsh=NzBmMjdhZWRiYQ==

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Addiction, Emotional abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Rape and Suicide

directorpurry's review

adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Torture, Drug use, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Sexual assault, and Drug abuse

aleksandra2611's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Trafficking, and Violence

nikspandya's review

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring tense 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? No

4.5

Highly recommend to anyone trying to get out of a reading slump. This fast-paced, fantasy western world has highs and lows, dark tunnels with the light at the end, fantastic bandit scenes, and a group of girls creating a life they never had the option to dream about before their escape. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, and Trafficking

decklededgess's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

trigger warnings: sexual assault (opening scene), sexual violence related ptsd, drug addiction, trafficking, racism, imprisonment and confinement, 

This book was a tough one. I had to pivot from physical to audiobook just to make it easier to process. From the get go it's apparent this is a rather loose allegory for Westward expansion era slavery. I mean really only the densest of people isn't going to pick up on that. It's really well researched and tactfully written. The attention to detail in terms of character development, trauma responses, relationship and trust building, were all incredibly crafted. The characters felt real, their responses felt genuine, amazing and touching stuff to read. 
The fantasy worldbuilding was a bit confusing but this is book 1 in this world/series, most of it was expository which is understandable, and this was a heavily character driven book so I wasn't too phased. Plus if we're considering the prior knowledge we already have about Wild West America, really all you have to do is swap certain terminology and you've got 90% of it covered.
Amazing book, can't wait to get to my ARC of the second book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, Drug use, Addiction, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Trafficking, Torture, and Rape

sarahaf712's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Child abuse, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Infertility, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Violence, Trafficking, Torture, Slavery, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Sexism, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Addiction, Blood, Death of parent, Drug use, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Infertility, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Police brutality, and Self harm