Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

El laberinto de los espíritus by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

3 reviews

alicialexandr_a's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

3.25

I don’t think a single female character in the novel wasn’t sexualized, assaulted, or called a whore. The book was slow and at some points dragged. While the writing was beautiful, at some points if felt pretentious and convoluted. The last 200 pages of the book were fantastic, but I don’t know if I’d go through the other 600 to get to it again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Suicide, Stalking, Sexual violence, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Violence, Vomit, War, Torture, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Physical abuse, Misogyny, Death of parent, and Death

clarabooksit's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Alcoholism, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Sexism, Torture, Violence, and Gun violence

Moderate: Ableism, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Pedophilia, Mental illness, Trafficking, Suicide, Stalking, Sexual assault, Rape, Kidnapping, and Sexual violence

Minor: Cancer and War

lilyadams's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

An incredible end to one of my favourite series of books ever. I'm honestly gutted to have finished this book series. 800 pages of brilliant storytelling and I can't wait to reread the whole thing. The pacing was perfect and I didn't feel bored at any point. It really wraps up every characters plots completely and thats a very satisfying (but rare!!) way to end a series of books.

The only reason I took away a star is that some of zafon's female characters feel a bit 2D. All the women are femme fatales and largely unrealistic. The other reason is the brief marital rape scene. It comes fairly near the end and is only a few paragraphs long and is stopped before its started but it still took me by surprise and made me feel quite uncomfortable. Whilst i understand that COFB is quite grim as a whole, I'm of the opinion that detailed sexual assault scenes really aren't at all needed and this one was so random and upsetting that I feel it was completely unnecessary to the point where it made a 5 star book less than that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Rape and Sexual violence