Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

4 reviews

vivelarevolution's review against another edition

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

1.0

I loved this book when I was younger and I wanted to love it now. I mean, come on, magic and sewing and spinning and knitting! What could be more up my alley?

Unfortunately I found the ableism to be absolutely intolerable and the love interest to be frustratingly sexist. I hated how the main character pushed her disabled brother into taking "one step every day" while she was off on her adventure as if that isn't an incredibly fucked up thing to encourage a disabled person to do, and I hated that she (poorly) faked his disability in order to pretend to be him. I stopped reading when she got drunk and strange men goaded her love interest (who she was not in a relationship with yet) into kissing her and she kissed him on the cheek to attempt to satisfy this request without making herself uncomfortable and then he kissed her anyway. Like, what the hell? Also, I assume that her love interest is also a teenager, but there were some weird references to him maybe being immortal that made me wonder. I can't remember my first reading well enough to say for certain whether or not this relationship was straight up pedophilic.

Also, this is one of my more minor gripes, but why have the main character come out as a gay man while going out of your way to establish that her love interest knew her gender the entire time and therefore nothing about that relationship is actually queer? It's not funny or cute, it's just weird.

Also, introducing a whole (fake, but still) ethnic group as "barbarians" and then having the main character meet some and learn "they're not all barbarians"? That's sick.

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kemikemi's review against another edition

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i knew from other people’s reviews going in that the competition was only the first half of the book and that the second half was a quest, but yeah they lost me during the quest…majority of page-time turns into development for the loveline rather than more sewing/designing/tailoring content, and i cannot get myself to buy into this romance because i hate the “hundreds year old man and teen girl” trope i keep yelling at him and calling him ‘gramps’ in my head. it would be different if he was straight up not human at all, but hes just a  man who took an oath for his magic and for reasons the magic just makes him stay looking 20 for 1000yrs while he serves out his oath. this man is old as shit.

so yeah, i cant bring myself to listen to 4 more hours of this just to finish it im sorry; the premise was so captivating but the way it ended up going just isnt for me. cover art is gorgeous though

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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The main character disguises herself as a (specific) boy with a disability she doesn't have. That was iffy enough, but my hell no point was when she bound her chest for five days with no breaks and then kept going through the pain. I'm not interested in watching a character either slowly distort her ribcage through unsafe binding practices, or mysteriously have it just be painful but have no other consequences.

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onemamareads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Read my full review here:  https://onemamassummer.weebly.com/book-reviews/spin-the-dawn

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