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Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

Outlawed by Anna North

76 reviews

melissalivanos's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

3.75

It was a good book, but hard to read sometimes. The dystopic “if a woman can’t have a baby, she’s a witch who needs to be hanged” tone is rough to stomach in the current political climate. But I liked the characters, the plot, the ending, and the prose. The novel successfully examined the themes it set out to examine, and left me with a lot of thoughts and feelings. It’s just not the kind of book I’m in a place to dolly enjoy right now.

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ejs2000's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful fast-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

Content Warnings

mfrisk's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful 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

I quite enjoyed the characters I got to know through this book, the settings, and the journey we go on as the characters develop and learn. This is a fun feminist western that brings a new perspective to the genre.

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nicoleherz's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful 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

4.25

Feminist adventure set in the wild wild west

A thrilling and inspiring story about a woman who knows she's worth more than the fate she is assigned. I loved the immediate focus on science and feminism, especially set in a time where these were not popular topics.
The characters were diverse with fascinating backstories and the author wasn't shy in taking them away from us.
Loved the happy ending, I was positive we weren't going to get one.

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capybooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense slow-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

4.25

I really enjoyed this book. It was a slow burn but one I thoroughly enjoyed. It was gripping, and you wanted the protagonist to succeed and get to Pagosa Springs to educate people about fertility. A brilliant read, and I can’t wait to read it again in the future.

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hmatt's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I love the concept of this story so much, and it had so much potential. The world-building is super well done, and I love alternate histories. Unfortunately, I came away with the feeling that the author tried to fit so much world and plot in that these got in the way of both the actual storytelling and the character-building.

Storytelling
I feel like the author was trying to fit too many events into too short of a narrative. This might have been okay, but there were so many minor events that I think we should have spent less time on, and a number of climactic events that we spent barely any time on whatsoever. A lot of these major events "fade to black" as soon as the action starts, and then we are caught up on what happened in retrospect later on - I was REALLY not a fan of this technique, and I don't think it made sense for the "western" genre.

Character-building
We do get a lot of information on most of the characters but, again, it's almost too much for how short of a book it is. What we lose out on, in my opinion, is a more profound emotional connection with the main character. We don't really dwell on her losses or feel them with her, which is extra strange given the whole novel is told in first-person.

TL;DR
The idea behind the novel is fantastic, but it tries to fit too much in. The concepts it seeks to explore are really only half-fleshed-out and the characters are hard to relate to, simply because the plot moves on too fast to hold space for these introspections.

Content Warnings