Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

400 reviews

liesthemoontells's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

dpmarvelous's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Though slow at times, i found this book really enjoyable and i look forward to continuing the series. :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, and War

alex2you's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, Torture, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Slavery

echolliot's review against another edition

Just too painful to keep going - cliche, trite, and honestly just really badly written. I couldn't plough through with this garbage Beauty and the Beast reimagining. And the horrible, abusive "romance" stuff made me want to throw my phone away. Don't bother.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Drug use, Slavery, Torture, Death of parent, Alcohol, and War

radtj's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

Bad summaries: 

500+ y/o guy falls for a 19 year old with an educational disability who doesnt know what to do with her life and then introduces her to royalty hell and forces her to save him from his eternal doom at the hands of a sadistic evil woman who kills for fun 🤷🏽‍♂️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Body shaming, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

octopus18's review against another edition

DNF. Pushed through until halfway but then I gave up. I didn't get the plot, MC was boring, writing style was bad. Also not a fan of the power relationship/age gap. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Sexual content

Moderate: Confinement and Slavery

cometkitty's review

dark slow-paced

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

1.0

Feyre is so unlikable that I could not bring myself to care when she was basically getting tortured....

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Sexual assault, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Slavery, Stalking, Murder, Gaslighting, and War

silfron's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Gore, Blood, and Vomit

Minor: Slavery, Death of parent, and Alcohol

sincerelymrskelsey's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

An entertaining, unique read. The violence is too much at times. I wouldn't call this a YA.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

coffinqueen's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Solid, expertly written book. Some issues with depictions of trauma.

New Adult Dark High Fantasy about a young woman who accidentally kills the friend of a fae lord while hunting. He forces her to come live in the fae world for the rest of her life. They become romantically involved and other faeries find out he's with a human. This enrages the jealous queen, who then tries to kill her and destroy his house by making him her slave. She even has another man she keeps for her own enjoyment already while terrorizing the entire kingdom and just slaughtering everyone who gets in her way. It's clear she enjoys toying with people and lashing out when she doesn't get what she wants. Things go from 0 to 300 quick.

ACOTAR has an initially slow start that really picks up in the middle. Full of action and a badass female protagonist who is also fragile emotionally and physically in comparison to the immortals around her. It's a little spooky and gritty. Lots of monsters and mystery. It's violent and dark and has a lot of great twists. Even the ending of this book is a twist in itself for the rest of the series. Book 1 is sort of: "What had happened was..." in a way that genuinely feels like immersing in a fairytale and then later seeing it has gone very very wrong. You get more and more of some great character building as it becomes less Disney and more reality, making it a really fun read.

Great intro to the series. Though a little flawed for the more serious themes it explores and how they are represented in book 1, (I feel they aren't remedied until

the start of

book 2) but they are mostly remedied by a large percentage when they are. That's a dangerous game when depicting a high fantasy that is realistically depicting so much trauma. There are a lot of themes which may offend or trigger but the characters just sort of live in it... So, read on! But just be aware this book may insinuate it is actually ignoring the important subjects it means to talk about... attention to them just comes in late.

You can tell that Maas is a smart writer who has seen many fairytales she was really fed up with. She takes every opportunity to bring in the rage she wishes those characters showed. And she is an expert writer who hides some really sweet details throughout her books. You may come out with an even better perspective and deeper appreciation on a second read because it does such a good job of upsetting the reader on the first read.

Definitely recommended. I just feel that an important part of the readership might fall off before the series really gets into what it's largely about, which was frustrating as a reader and as someone who can closely relate to some of those issues.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Bullying, Confinement, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Rape, and Slavery

Discussions about abuse, neglect, etc are less prevalent in book 1 and more prevalent in book 2. For the worse in my opinion. Because it doesn't allow for discussion ABOUT the abuse and that it is abuse until this book has ended. The characters just live in the abuse in book 1 and not much is done about it or contextualized. It's very realistic and well-researched but the handling isn't very delicate to start. However, the abusive bits also aren't graphic and book 2 has more delicate handling and continued light mentioning coupled with a more serious discussion. Disappointing weakening of book 1 a bit. But hey... surviving trauma also teaches you that we can't expect perfection. The year was 2015. I'm glad it was talked about at all.