Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis

4 reviews

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

julesadventurezone's review

adventurous 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Blood, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Trafficking, Slavery, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Torture, Vomit, and Violence

kelsireads's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Trafficking, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Rape

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Grief, Infertility, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, and Suicide

kayblecar's review

adventurous dark hopeful fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Trigger warning for discussions and depictions of child sex trafficking, characters experiencing PTSD, parallels to police brutality.

The Good Luck Girls follows the escape of five girls from sexual slavery, in a fantasy world where the exploitation of a group of people called “dustbloods” through slavery and generational debt directly parallels the history of Black and Indigenous people in the United States.

I’ve seen The Good Luck Girls described as a “fantasy western,” and while that’s a fair description, it has some distinctly Southern Gothic foundations. The ghosts take the form of a backdrop for the story, in a way that is rooted in the horrific history of the land and parallels American slavery and the Reconstruction era. Charlotte Nichole Davis excellently balances directly telling the reader how this world works and letting us infer from the characters’ offhand comments.

I’m usually wary of fantasy worlds that draw direct metaphors to oppressed groups, since they can easily find themselves relying on stereotypes to draw the parallel, but The Good Luck Girls did not seem to fall into this trap to me. The world of The Good Luck Girls is so tightly tied to the historical roots of modern racism, as well as modern conversations around fighting oppression, that it feels more like an alternate history than a fantasy lifting forms of oppression from the real world. Through the lens of survivors unpacking their traumatic experiences together, it addresses the ways that oppressed groups are pitted against each other, the ways that forms of oppression intersect, and the ways that trauma impacts survivors, as well as the difficulty of identifying who is to blame in a system built to cause harm and take choices away.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Slavery, Sexual violence, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Suicide and Pedophilia