Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

42 reviews

tina94's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia and Drug use

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Religious bigotry

hanz's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious slow-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? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

beckybirch's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Violence, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Rape, Physical abuse, Mental illness, and Domestic abuse

afriske's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Self harm

Moderate: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Eating disorder, Alcoholism, Addiction, and Rape

Minor: Child abuse and Sexual content

bookscoffeehayley's review

challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective slow-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

5.0

“Sometimes you recognize truth because it destroys you for a bit”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CW: suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, rape, self-harm, self-destructive behavior, child abuse, domestic violence

This book did, in fact, destroy me for a bit… Akwaeke Emezi has quickly become an auto-buy author for me. After reading their sophomore novel, The Death of Vivek Oji, I needed more of this brilliant writing.

I’m yet again blown away by Emezi’s writing in Freshwater, their autobiographical debut novel. The way they write about the exploration of self, trauma, spiritual identity, the soul’s strategies of protection, self-destruction, rebuilding. There’s a lot to unpack in this novel; a lot of aspects of Ada’s story resonated with me and my own mental health journey.

I highly recommend this one and I will be moving Emezi’s YA debut, Pet, to the top of my TBR!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Rape, Self harm, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

marioncromb's review

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Child abuse, Car accident, Death, Domestic abuse, and Medical content

emfass's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

It is hard to capture my feelings about this book - maybe I will come back and share more thoughts when I've processed a bit. 

I am close to someone who experiences dissociative identity disorder, and while I don't want to compare their experience to a culture/ontology/spirituality I know nothing about and the parallels and contrasts therein, I will also say that this book was both incredibly profound and challenging to read, due to how closely it seems to reflect some of my friend's experiences.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, and Homophobia

joshlegere's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Rape, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Cursing

rosenaughtin's review

dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

Freshwater is like nothing I’ve read before, both in content and style. The writing is otherworldly, mysterious, and thought-provoking. It is a story of Ada, an Ogbanje, and the gods/tricksters/saints who live inside of her. It offers a completely decolonized perspective on mental illness and gender, and the story reflects the author’s lived experience. Deeply heartbreaking at times, it ultimately is about resilience and acceptance amidst trauma. 

Favorite quote: “That was the first thing that made us interested in him — his anger. His rich, thick blood sap anger. His nightmare childhood trauma anger...you could taste the sharp sting of it, the salty frantic colors it had.“

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm and Suicide

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, and Rape

biblioleah's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

this was a beautiful, difficult book. i look forward to rereading it in the future, and seeing what more i can get from the marvelous story.
update: i was right it is so much better on the reread. it’ll stick with me for a long while, and emezi has since the first read become a favorite author and artist of all time. no one can do it like they do. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Violence, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Vomit, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Child death, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Gore, Grief, Infertility, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, and Suicide

Minor: Homophobia