Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

8 reviews

sbookreader's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Grief, Racism, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual assault, War, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Bullying, Hate crime, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Terminal illness, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Toxic friendship

book_cave_ghost_girl's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? No

5.0

Unforgettable deep dive into the immense cruelty and dehumanization of chattel slavery and the complex relationships of the characters with each other when it comes to love and power-- will make you feel your feelings!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Slavery, Sexism, Murder, Death of parent, Child abuse, Miscarriage, Grief, Emotional abuse, Child death, Racism, Religious bigotry, Hate crime, Gore, Blood, Violence, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, and Death

Moderate: Sexual content, Miscarriage, Sexual violence, Sexism, Misogyny, Rape, and Sexual assault

Minor: Alcoholism, Murder, War, Infidelity, Pedophilia, and Child death

birdomens's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense 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

5.0

This book is beautiful. It’s painted so well with a mix of magic and reality. Afia follows tangled roots of stories in a way that both acknowledges their complexity and keeps connections and plot clear to follow. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Hate crime, Torture, Trafficking, Body horror, Confinement, Abortion, Child death, Cursing, Death of parent, Alcohol, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Rape, War, Blood, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Medical content, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Racial slurs, Racism, Vomit, Violence, Child abuse, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

michaelion's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

3.25

Something's missing. I found myself confused through most the book, and not in the normal way that I like to be confused whenever I'm reading magical realism. Something's just not there. I'm not sure what it is, or if this even makes sense, but I realized it about a quarter of the way through, and that feeling just lingered the rest of the time. I would say maybe I need to reread it in the future, but who knows if I will. The subject matter of slavery is already so triggering for me, but with the rest of the triggering content I know I won't pick it up again for, mm, maybe three years minimum. Not to say that the content is explicit or overt, that's just how triggers are, in general.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Racism, Torture, Infidelity, Confinement, Miscarriage, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Hate crime, Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Rape, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Slavery, Child death, Grief, Violence, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Dementia, War, Misogyny, Animal death, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Infertility, Murder, Abortion, Death, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Xenophobia, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Medical content, Terminal illness, and Stalking

nialiversuch's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Grief, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Blood, Torture, Violence, War, Colonisation, Cursing, Murder, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Kidnapping, Medical content, Child death, Death, Body horror, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, and Trafficking

Moderate: Cancer, Terminal illness, Abortion, Vomit, Miscarriage, and Suicidal thoughts

rescudde's review against another edition

dark 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, and Slavery

mvrcellv's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-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? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Violence, Torture, Slavery, Racism, Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Forced institutionalization, and Emotional abuse

thecozyarchivist's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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

3.0

Read this for my book club, and I hate to say it but if it wasn’t for said book club, I would have DNFed. I wasn’t a big fan of the story jumping around back and forth between Rue’s childhood and adulthood. I get that it was meant to build anticipation but it just caused confusion. I found myself just not really paying attention and often getting lost as to what part of the story we were at.

This book also has so much black pain as its focus, and I was really just waiting for these characters to get some kind of reprieve. I read books with heavy topics all the time, but there was no balance here, just pain on top of pain for every character. Like when you think things can’t get worse, they get worse. 😕

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, and Child death

Moderate: Rape