Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Faith: Taking Flight by Julie Murphy

12 reviews

ezwolf's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

3.0

I really wanted to love this. A fat main character who's also a superhero? And queer??? Count me in! 

Unfortunately, I just couldn't get in to it. I'm not a fan of pop culture references even in present day stories and there were just so many of them. I was also a lot more interested in the superhero aspect than the romance aspect and so much of the book was focused on the love triangle between Faith, Dakota, and Johnny. Even while acknowledging that love triangles aren't fun! I was fully skimming by the last 40% or so, but I don't even know if we got a resolution with Johnny or if Faith just started spending more time with Dakota and didn't mention Johnny again post-corn maze. 

I think this book may be a hit for someone else, just not for me :/

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Grief, Body shaming, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Gun violence, Drug abuse, Blood, and Drug use

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, and Death of parent

fanboyriot's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

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

1.0

I’m honestly kinda disappointed that I didn’t like this.  I just couldn’t get into it.

It was way too quick paced to the point I just didn’t care about anything that happened.  The dialogue was stiff and just overall felt like it was for a much younger audience rather than a YA book.

The friendships and side characters just kinda fell flat.  Especially when the plot twist happened in chapters 24/25.  I just honestly didn’t care at that point what happened.  Even the ending seem so rushed and I don’t understand why.

I will say the plus sized rep was nice along with some of the queer rep but that was about it for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Gaslighting, Animal death, Dementia, Addiction, Gun violence, and Mental illness

Moderate: Homophobia, Medical trauma, Car accident, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Biphobia, Bullying, Body shaming, Animal cruelty, Fatphobia, Kidnapping, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Death of parent, Confinement, Death, Stalking, Trafficking, Racism, and Blood

brookey8888's review

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

2.75

I’m sad I didn’t enjoy this. I thought that faith was self centered and a bad friend. I also didn’t like the romance because it’s like a power imbalance even though their the same age. Also if she forgives them I can’t. As for the superhero stuff I felt like it was hardly explained or honestly really talked about. That being said I do love the fat and sexuality representation. I also appreciate the talk about dementia. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Drug use, Gaslighting, Grief, Kidnapping, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Biphobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Car accident, Death, Dementia, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Toxic relationship

maybe_a_cat's review

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content and Dementia

Minor: Car accident and Death of parent

monicalaurette's review

emotional inspiring medium-paced

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

3.0

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. A bisexual (possibly pansexual), plus-size girl who loves animals has superpowers? That’s right up my alley, however, I just couldn’t get myself to love it. Perhaps the book was too young for me, causing me to cringe at the fandom-talk and not connecting with the characters that much as a 25-year old.

“You can’t save them all, Faith.”

Faith as a character is too trusting as a character, like immediately trusting people she meets in one day and not even really caring about other intentions. I found myself reading the prologue rolling my eyes at how eager she was to believe this man who essentially lied to her and confessed that he and others were watching her. If I was her, first I wouldn’t have been alone with him, and second I would have left so quickly.

Most of the book, in my opinion, was just Faith being a teenager and focused very little on her powers and the issues happening in the town. All the issues and the “big bad” really only came in the last few pages.

Also, I didn’t like how Faith’s plus-size-ness was brought up with Miss Ella making a comment that she can’t run. But perhaps that is because I have my own issues with my weight and have had people say that to me before. Then when Whitney comes into the fold and mentions Dakota having a “type” of bigger girls, I was really put off because it made me think of like, chubby chasers and how when I was younger I thought that was sweet, but instead it’s more like fetishizing plus-size people.

But still, I think it would be nice to have a YA book where there’s a plus-size girl that doesn’t have to deal with that. Again, this comes from my own life being plus-size so if you’re plus-size and you liked how the rep was done, I’m honestly so happy for you because we need all the good rep that we can get.

Overall, I give this 3 stars because it was a plus-size rep that wasn’t bad, it just didn’t make me feel good as a plus-size person. I do have another book by this author, but it’s an adult story so perhaps I’ll like that one more. But in the end, I am content with leaving Faith’s story where it left off here and not picking up the next one.

I feel that the situation with Chelsea was so damn quick for them to notice her not being around and then her arrested. Part of the issue with being in only Faith’s head I guess. Matt being so angry at Faith as well about it after knowing about Lou was also really rude of him.

With Chelsea as well, Matt constantly making rude comments about her practice was not the type of behavior a best friend would do. If he were my friend and did that to me, he wouldn’t be my friend for much longer.

Poor Grant honestly, yeah he was dealing but also like, he didn’t have to die.

Johnny was my favorite of the romantic options, Dakota rubbed me the wrong way from the very beginning. I felt very vindicated at the end when it was revealed she knew what was going on.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, and Dementia

Moderate: Drug use, Fatphobia, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Trafficking, Car accident, Stalking, and Death of parent

em_dill's review

adventurous inspiring slow-paced

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

3.75

This book has wonderful fat and LGBTQ+ representation. It is very present but it isn’t the main focus of the book in the way a lot of media with LGBTQ+ characters have it (it isn’t a story about coming out). It can take a bit to get into as the action comes more towards the end of the book. I feel like some of the action is rushed and would have been better if it had been started sooner, but I still enjoyed the book. It is a pretty easy read and a great choice if you are looking for a superhero origin story with fat and LGBTQ+ rep. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Car accident, Death of parent, and Dementia

Minor: Fatphobia and Body shaming

lily1304's review

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.0

I'll admit I got into the plot once the stakes were raised - and without the stakes of a mystery drug and a string of kidnappings, the old teen-superhero tropes would be too boring. As it is, they're a little tired. Teen narrator accidentally gets caught up in a romantic relationship and/or superhero stuff and ditches her normal friends because she doesn't know how to tell them she has superpowers.

A couple characters show some particularly creepy behavior that Faith totally falls for, and it turns out they are, indeed, doing creepy stuff. But at the end of the story, Faith is like super ready to forgive them and make excuses for them? And it's kind of unnerving. How she's like "these people that literally trafficked and abused me? well, not everything is black and white" yikes.

Also something kind of petty that bothered me:

Faith is trying to be a superhero in a collapsing building, and she literally tries to save dogs before people that she knows are also trapped. Uh... Girl?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Animal cruelty, Drug use, Confinement, Kidnapping, and Trafficking

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Medical content, and Toxic relationship

caelix's review

adventurous dark lighthearted sad fast-paced

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

3.75

It was very cute and I liked the love corner which doesn’t happen often lmao

I just wish it wasn’t The Groove set who was responsible of that bcs I feel so bad for her to be losing her one anchor when her life is already going to shit

ALSO DONT TOUCH GRABDMA LOU LOML LEAVE HER ALONE

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Gun violence, Drug use, Medical trauma, Medical content, Addiction, Animal death, Death of parent, Child death, Stalking, Animal cruelty, and Car accident

Moderate: Fatphobia and Body shaming

Minor: Biphobia

thereaderfriend's review against another edition

adventurous funny 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use and Death of parent

Moderate: Death, Fatphobia, and Mental illness

Minor: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, and Addiction

I LOVED THIS. New fav fantasy book. Need more superhero books.

malloryfitz's review

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Car accident, Blood, Mental illness, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Fatphobia, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Addiction, Body shaming, Colonisation, Cursing, Stalking, Racism, Kidnapping, Gun violence, Drug use, and Drug abuse