Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

250 reviews

yulecogs's review against another edition

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

litbrett's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, War, and Injury/Injury detail

library_kb's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I really enjoyed the worldbuilding of this book. Plus it had a satisfying conclusion, despite being the first book in a series, but still enough interest in what might happen next. The one thing that I would have liked more was character development, especially of the side characters--I really didn't buy the relationship between Deka and Keitu because it felt very rushed...but if the next book has more development here, I'll be excited!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Violence, Blood, and War

Minor: Rape and Sexual assault

kyannarichard's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.75

It took me a bit to really gravitate to the book. But it was so good from the beginning. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Classism

bookforthought's review

adventurous challenging dark fast-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? Yes

3.5

A powerful story about a group of young women made to believe their golden blood and superior abilities mark them as demons. As they are made to choose between certain death and fighting in an army to protect the empire from monsters, hard truths will come to light and the biggest question of all: who is the real monster?

The cast is lovely and diverse and I loved Deka as the main character. It was refreshing to have a complex, three-dimensional black female main character for once! The female friendships in this were also gorgeous. I also enjoyed the worldbuilding and the internal mythology but my main issue with this book was that there was much too telling and not enough showing. There were a lot of very important underlying themes which definitely make this a valuable read, but my enjoyment of it really took a hit because of the way this story was told.

I quite struggled to connect with the writing style, which while easy to read was at times maybe overly simplistic. This is probably just me though, not the book's fault, and it may not be a problem for other (younger) readers. I also had some issues with the use of trauma in this, even though I appreciated the effort to show a wide range of experiences and reactions to some severely traumatic events.

This book gets pretty explicitly violent for a YA fantasy, so be mindful of triggers before reading this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Moderate: Racism, Blood, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape and Sexual assault

vicyoung18's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape

Minor: Trafficking

analienfromouterspace's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

I picked up this book spontaneously and ended up loving it so much. The character development, plot twist and just the whole world, LOVED IT. A little slow at times, hence not 5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Abandonment

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Vomit, Trafficking, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and War

Minor: Child abuse, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, and Death of parent

vampire_burrito's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

Okay re-reading this was definitely a good idead because how was I not obsessed with this book the first time around. Sure the first few hundred pages are very slow (the first 70% took me two months to read) but the last 100 pages!! Shook!! Everything happened at once and I loved it. And though it took me a long time to read, the first part of the book is very good although it did end up feeling a little but repetitive because it's basically just a cycle of "train, kill deathshrieks, something strange happens to Deka, trying to find out why that happened" for 200 pages. My favourite parts of the book was Deka's relationships with other characters particularly her friendship with Britta. I loved how the author put friendship with woman as the forefront of the book. The other thing that I really loved was that the book never condemned any of the characters for wanting to fall in love. I feel like a lot of feminist stories do that and I hate it. But The Gilded Ones has a character who's entire motivation is to go home to her village, marry the guy that she's in love with and have children. And it's never shown as a bad thing. The romance between Deka and Keita was also very sweet and I definitely liked it more upon a re-read. Overall  good, would recommend and I will be reading the sequels.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Violence

Minor: Rape and Sexual violence

catorureads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark fast-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Torture, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing and Vomit

Minor: Rape and Sexual violence

nessas_lair's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring slow-paced

3.5

 TW: Rape off-screen, violence, and gore.

This was such a great book and I would highly recommend reading it. The worldbuilding with the patriarchy was so interesting to read about and I loved how descriptive it was! I thought Deka’s romance didn’t have much substance, but I’m glad it wasn’t a huge plot point of the story. It was nice to see the focus more on her relationship with her blood sisters, especially Britta. That part at the ending with Britta shocked me for sure and I had a huge, “OH NO THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING” moment. Luckily this book has a great ending that is filled with closure and could honestly be a standalone. I’ll still check out the next book because I’m interested to see what happens next. I also thought Adwapa’s character was great and I loved that there was a lesbian romance. This book definitely features some heavy content but I think it was beautifully written and was very much “girl power.” On a sidenote, I totally called the deathshriek plot twist super early on in the story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Rape, and Violence