Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips

9 reviews

dannb's review

challenging dark informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Not for the faint of heart... as both an avid reader and puzzler, who is not afraid of non-linear, this often requires note taking to keep track.  It seems like it just tries to do too much.

Yes, I realize it won the Pulitzer.  The subject perspective is a new one to me.  It was fine, but I was hoping for more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, and War

melissafirman's review

Night Watch was on my TBR before it won the Pulitzer because I apparently enjoyed one of Jayne Anne Phillip's previous novels, Lark and Termite. (I gave it 4 stars but don't seem to have reviewed it, so I can't tell you much more of my thoughts.) And I started off liking this post-Civil War historical fiction novel, too. Night Watch opens with an intriguing scene: a mother and her thirteen-year-old daughter ConaLee are being transported at night to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia. The mother is mute -- we get the sense something traumatic has happened - and she's recently given birth but the "babbies" (this pronounciation of babies kind of irked me, TBH) have been left behind. 

So far, so good. I was interested in their back story but it quickly became confusing with time switches and people with two different names and, worst of all, a violent and graphically detailed rape scene. (I'm still a bit shook a day after listening to the audio narration.) From other reviews, it seems that

there are additional assaults yet to come, including of ConaLee

and that was the deciding factor for me to DNF. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Rape, and Sexual assault

b_easelbub's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Gore, Violence, Child abuse, Death of parent, Rape, Sexual assault, Body horror, Physical abuse, Confinement, War, Torture, and Death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Murder, Slavery, Mental illness, Racism, and Emotional abuse

sandsing7's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful medium-paced

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

3.5

Read it for the plot - not the characters. It has one of the most disturbingly graphic scenes I’ve ever read - comparable to how I felt about that infamous Outlander scene.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, and Gun violence

Moderate: War

horationelson's review against another edition

• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, and Confinement

Moderate: War, Miscarriage, Injury/Injury detail, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Slavery and Pregnancy

sara_reads_and_wines's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

2.5

This was not what I originally expected. I was intrigued at first wondering what exactly the story would be about, but it quickly got pretty, almost unnecessarily(see content warnings!), dark.

I did appreciate the growth of ConaLee having to mature quickly as an child to be the adult in the situation she was forced into. 

Each characters story was heartbreaking for sure. You were rooting for a HEA, knowing that whatever end would still be difficult. 

My issues outside of the story was the formating of how the author wrote the book. Long huge paragraphs that could have been broken up better, no quotations on what was being said made it difficult to follow at times, switching POV's also gave vague details about some important parts of the story. The graphic assaults described also seemed unnecessary.

If you are going to give this one a shot I recommend the audio as once I switched it made it easier to follow the story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence

Very graphic depictions of sexual assault

misha136's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, War, Sexual violence, and Medical trauma

deedireads's review

challenging dark emotional 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? No

3.0

Night Watch was longlisted for the National Book Award this year, which is what placed it on my TBR. The premise and the cover both held so much potential for me, but unfortunately, this book was just not my cup of tea.

As other reviewers have said before me, there are parts of this book depicting sexual violence that are very hard to read. In fact, it’s what drives our main character’s mother into her current mute, zombie-like state, which is how they end up in the novel’s main setting, a (historically real in the 1800s) psychiatric hospital. I did think that the research that went into this novel was really well done, and it was interesting reading a novel in a setting like that. Plus, the prose was good and I could see the potential of a strong ending to make the reading experience feel worth it, so I kept going. Unfortunately, that ending never materialized; in fact, I’m sorry to say that the ending totally sucked for me.

So all in all, while I can see its merits, this isn’t a book I’d likely recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Rape, and Death

ex_hardesty's review

Graphic multi-page description of rape. Did not love the writing style. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, War, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Emotional abuse, Death, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, and Sexual violence