Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni

112 reviews

av0universe's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I didn’t expect that ending?!

This book surprised me in a good way. I really like the worldbuilding and Kiva as the main character is interesting, to say the least. 

Tipp is the cutest character ever 🫶 and for the most part, I really liked the found family

Seriously, I can’t stop thinking about that ending. It blew my mind even though I guessed most of it. Amazing. The narrator is everything here.

I’m pretty sure I dreamed of this book today

Mother is dead.
I’m on my way to Vallenia.
It’s time to reclaim our kingdom.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Slavery, Blood, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Grief, Death of parent, Death, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Self harm, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Medical content, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Addiction, Rape, Sexism, and Torture

Minor: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Self harm, Sexual assault, Vomit, Violence, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Torture

sheekapatak's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Rape, and Violence

letiross's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Confinement, Physical abuse, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Drug abuse, Self harm, Death of parent, and Sexual assault

Minor: Child abuse, Rape, and Sexual assault

ephemeralreader's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent and Torture

Minor: Sexual assault and Rape

epellicci's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.0

This book somehow felt both slow and rushed. While I expected it to be uncomfortable, with most of the book taking place within an unregulated prison environment, the brutality felt poorly fleshed out. There is constant reference to physical, sexual and mental abuse suffered by the prisoners at the hands of the guards, but it never goes anywhere. Kiva’s internal monologue often refers to how at any time there are people who can take advantage of her, and yet it felt shallow and unbelievable. 

 While the aim it to increase the drama of the big reveal at the end, I found Kiva hard to root for when her motivations seemed so all over the place. She takes on the horrific ordeal of the Rebel Queen’s sentence and punishment, yet maintains throughout that she is only mildly sympathetic to the rebel’s cause – instead driven by her oath as a healer. When in the very last pages, it was revealed that there was much more to it than that, I found it hard to believe that the cool, manipulative Kiva who had just been revealed was the same person as the hopelessly naive one who still believed after a decade that her family were on the way to recuse her, and who broke all her rules about forming relationships because Jaren had a pretty face. 
 
 Unfortunately, I can see fairly obviously where the next two books are going, and am not invested enough in the characters to watch it play out. Despite this being a pretty quick, easy read, that ultimately did no harm, it reminds me of all the things I didn’t like about ACOTR, and so I won’t be bothering with the rest of it.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, and Self harm

Moderate: Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Confinement

Minor: Child death, Rape, and Addiction

lordfroggington's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment and Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault, Rape, Blood, Self harm, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Death of parent, and Child death

Minor: War and Fire/Fire injury

raichou's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

Ich habe mir das Buch vor allem gekauft, weil ich das Cover so schön fand, ohne wirklich zu wissen im was es geht. 

Alles in allem eine gelungene Geschichte, ich glaube ich bin nur schon etwas zu alt für die eigentliche Zielgruppe. Trotzdem war es eine interessante Story, der Twist am Ende kam für mich unerwartet. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Torture, Vomit, Drug use, Sexual harassment, Violence, and Rape

Moderate: Self harm

delandjessica's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I both loved and didn't love this book. I loved the idea of having this character, Kiva, be the healer in this horrible prison and the focus on her doing her best to take care of the other prisoners. I especially liked the detective element as she's trying to figure out where a mystery illness is coming from. But I didn't feel like the main element of the plot, the Trial by Ordeal, was really even necessary. Not once did Kiva manage to accomplish anything in the trials on her own, being saved by others every single time,  and it honestly just felt super gimmicky anyway, used as a flashy lure in the book blurb to get readers to pick up the book. It makes no sense that a prison would go through the effort of putting on such a pointless and time wasting performance just to kill a  prisoner, since that's the whole point of the trials is for the person to die spectacularly, especially when there's already the Abyss where problematic prisoners are sent to but never return from. It all just smelled like plot convenience to me and could have easily been written out of the book, which would have made both the plot and Kiva's character stronger.

I also had a huge problem with Jaren. He starts hitting on Kiva from the moment he sees her, continues to pursue her romantically and touches her constantly despite her repeatedly telling him to stop, and he has no real personality other than being attractive and good. I'm not sure how that's supposed to be interpreted as being romantic. I also struggled with Tipp. His character was sweet, but though I appreciate that the author wanted to introduce more character diversity, Tipp's extreme stutter really slows down the reading experience. The author could have reduced the stutter by at least two thirds per dialogue exchange and it would have conveyed the same idea without making it so difficult to get through. The stutter also didn't add anything to Tipp's character that wasn't already there, so I would have liked to see the author either give a purpose for the stutter or remove it entirely.

However, despite all the overexplanation and insufficient description and Kiva's wishy-washy grasp of who she herself even is (she's always saying that she never or always does things and has for the last ten years, but then turns around and is doing or not doing them anyway), I absolutely loved the whole ending and the twist at the very end. It was unexpected but suddenly made the entire book make so much more sense in hindsight. Twist endings are so difficult to pull off, but this one was handled perfectly and I'm eager to see what happens with Kiva next.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Gore, Blood, Torture, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Physical abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual violence, Drug abuse, Child death, Vomit, Addiction, Sexual harassment, Rape, Self harm, and Sexual assault

Romance is present, but doesn't get physical.

bluebreex's review

adventurous dark mysterious 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

3.0

I did enjoy this book, but I do think it was way too over hyped for me. I enjoyed the main cast and the trials throughout, but there were some themes I could do without. Please check trigger warnings before picking up this book so you're not caught off guard. 

I wasn't sold on continuing this series until the last few chapters

and that's on plot twists!! Did not see any of that coming! Very intrigued to see what storm Kiva is going to kick up in the palace

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Animal death, Medical content, and Torture

Moderate: Police brutality, Medical content, Rape, Sexual assault, and Self harm

jennfs10's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

It was a slow start for me and while I liked Kiva’s character, I wasn’t immediately engaged. I kept hearing that the plot twist was the best part. I think that was the biggest reason why I I kept reading at a steady pace and this was a Reading Society book club read for March. I will admit, by the end I thought it’d end as a typical YA fantasy HEA but the plot twist completely turned it into an unexpected but much more interesting character arc for Kiva. I’ve already started the second book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Medical content, Murder, Sexual harassment, Death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Torture, Sexual assault, Self harm, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Rape