Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

3 reviews

theirgracegrace's review

adventurous funny tense medium-paced

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

4.25

As a longtime fan of T. Kingfisher's work, Nettle & Bone was a natural choice to read and a very good decision. Kingfisher weaves together fairy tale tropes and folklore to make a world full of fairy godmothers, goblins, and the restless dead. The tale is told with Kingfisher's trademark snark and humour from the perspective of Marra, a young princess whose older sister has become the abused wife of a wicked king. Her task is to kill the king and free her sister, and along the way finds a witch, a dog made of bones, her own fairy godmother, a demonic chicken and a foreign man whose freedom is bought from the Fair Folk with a tooth. The twists and turns of this book are as hard to predict as the mausoleum of the Northern Kingdom, and well worth the ride. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Violence, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Blood, Cannibalism, Classism, Misogyny, Alcohol, Pregnancy, Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Murder, Confinement, Death, Sexual violence, Body horror, Slavery, Child death, Animal death, Grief, Infertility, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Torture

Minor: Abortion, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Gore, War, Cursing, and Excrement

There is one particular scene where the main character's teeth are made to dance in her mouth and one of them is removed. It is very reminiscent of the "imagining my teeth falling out" dream but can be quite disturbing. There is also a character in the city which has a "curse-child", which is described like a marionette or puppet that chokes and harms her.

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

dark emotional funny tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Toxic relationship, Violence, War, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Cursing, Infidelity, Misogyny, Infertility, Medical content, Miscarriage, Murder, Sexual content, Confinement, Death, Gore, Grief, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Sexual violence, and Vomit

tigger89's review

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.5

I thoroughly enjoyed this take on dark fairy tales. The opening scenes — set in a famine-ravaged land inhabited by cannibals — set the tone, and the rest of the novel delivers, even as the focus shifts from blatant to more subtle horrors. I found the plot to be very feminist(not that I'd expected any less from T. Kingfisher), with a varied, predominantly-female cast of characters who were all capable and strong in their own ways. The one man who joined their party, Fenris, carries a supporting role equivalent to that of of the others. In addition, Marra read as autistic-coded to me, particularly how she struggled to pick up on subtext and the particular ways she focused on things. I liked that she was allowed to experience romantic/sexual desire(a very minor element, but present), as many autistic-coded characters aren't allowed to have or explore those feelings, which is of course completely inaccurate.

My favorite aspects of the novel were getting to know the characters who worked together on the rescue mission, as well as the clever way they went about it and the various places they traveled through. Some readers might find the way the narrative jumps back and forth from the present to the past in the first half of the novel to be difficult, though I didn't have trouble following it. Really, the only part I didn't like was how the opening pages got me invested in the blistered land, which winds up being utterly inconsequential to the story. I got all hyped for a story about completing impossible tasks in a land filled with people driven mad as a result of cannibalism(yes, in that order), but that's not what the story wound up being about. There is a touch of romance, but it's very much in the background and shouldn't be much of a bother even if you don't like romantic plots.

Does the dog and/or chick(en) die?

The dog is already dead when the story begins(and the circumstances of the dog's death are briefly touched upon, though not explicitly), is brought back to life through magic, and then dies again in combat at the climax of the story. At the end, however, it's restored to life. The chicken does not die, nor does the baby chick, though the chick is briefly placed under a curse that threatens its death.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Animal death, Pregnancy, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Cursing, and Physical abuse

Minor: Child death, Murder, Death of parent, Animal cruelty, Miscarriage, Abortion, and Cannibalism

There is a brief scene where the point of view character has a tooth extracted through magical means, with the description verging on body horror.