Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Dangerous Women by Hope Adams

3 reviews

xom4e's review

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

I found myself bored a lot, which is why I’m only giving it 3 1/2 stars, but I think the story was well written. I also liked the alternating timelines and different character point of views. My only issue with the point of view is that it jumped from first person to omniscient, so it was difficult to remembering whose point of view we were looking at, and from which alternating narration standpoint. Other than that, check trigger warnings, but get ready for a wild and interesting ride.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Violence, Murder, and Rape

Moderate: Sexual violence, Death, Infertility, Abandonment, Abortion, Child death, Body shaming, Cursing, Pregnancy, Bullying, Confinement, Deportation, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, and Violence

beautifulpaxielreads's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective 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? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Miscarriage, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Self harm, Sexism, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Cursing, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Minor: Ableism and Child death

krissysbooked's review

dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

This book was provided to me via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dangerous Women follows almost 200 convict women as they embark on a voyage from London, UK to Hobart, Australia as punishment for the various crimes in the mid-1800s. Along the way, they complete a patchwork quilt known as the Rajah quilt, after the boat they are travelling on. I was surprised at the end of the book to find out that all of this is true but the story of what happened on the voyage presented by Adams is fictitious. 

The book is written from multiple character viewpoints and bounces between the early days of the voyage under 'Then' chapters, and later days after the incident under 'Now' chapters. I found this really difficult to get my head around to start with and was confused as to who was who and had to keep checking if I was in a 'Then' or 'Now' chapter. Perhaps a character list to reference may be helpful to the reader, as although it was confusing I suspect this was intended as the characters themselves were trying to work out who was responsible.

Despite the confusion, I thought it was well written and I enjoyed the history aspect of the story especially with the ambition to highlight the issues faced by women of the time, where many were convicted of crimes that were committed as an act of survival as opposed to true malevolence. Sadly many of these issues and circumstances still exist today.

It isn't a book that blew me away but it was an enjoyable and enlightening read and I'm off to find out more about this ship, the blanket and it's history. It would also be nice, in the final version of the book, to see sketches or photos of the sections of the blanket referenced in the descriptions at the beginning of each chapter.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Grief, Medical content, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Suicidal thoughts

As part of the characters back stories there are mentions of the circumstances they were in and the things they did in order to survive. None are done in too much detail but they are still upsetting especially if you have personal experience of any of them,