Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

4 reviews

another_dahlia's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Rape, Death, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Toxic relationship, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Biphobia, Child abuse, Colonisation, Racial slurs, Racism, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Sexism, Animal death, and Child death

mysimas's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

2.0

Like Xenogenesis, Fledgling also starts engagingly, almost like a thriller - the protagonist wakes up in the darkness, in pain, with no memory of her previous life, and struggles for her survival and later for the discovery of her nature.
Unfortunately, said discovery happens through exposition upon exposition upon exposition. Most of the book consists of explanatory dialogue when the protagonist has things described to her by other characters. 
The second prominent part of the book, albeit less prominent than the explanations, are descriptions of the protagonist biting her human companions, having sex with them, and manipulating them with the aid of her saliva. Aside from this, the protagonist’s planned mating with male vampires is discussed a lot. 
Seeing as the protagonist looks like a human child and is in fact a vampire child, and yet engages in all these acts, the author aims to to disturb the reader. Similarly, the fact that all the human companions come to be addicted to their vampire’s saliva and will die should they lose access to it, and the fact they literally cannot disobey any of their vampire’s commands, bring up the issue of the missing free will, and also serve to discomfit.

In the end, the book mostly just provides information about the vampiric world, and tries to throw off the reader. The characters all serve to this two-dimensional purpose and aren’t remarkable on their own. The protagonist had literally lost all sense of her self and spends the whole novel trying to rediscover herself, without actually having achieved that goal by the end of the book — her journey is only just starting. 
The plot is very simple and not stimulating.

Overall I would’ve preferred if the contents — the worldbuilding and the ethical questions —  stayed more in the background and were adding flavour and depth to a more intricate storyline with actual fleshed-out characters instead of being the actual focus of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Sexual assault

fenemiestolovers's review against another edition

Couldn’t get past the pedophilic relationship. According to Google searches I learned

Shori is not human and is actually over 50 years old

but I knew I could personally not read a story with that dynamic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Pedophilia, Body horror, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, Rape, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

Moderate: Animal death

redcapediver's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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? No

4.0

Weird! Let’s pray they never make a movie 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Animal death, Body horror, Cannibalism, Classism, Blood, Child abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Xenophobia