Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos

66 reviews

taaya's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

1.0

 Die Protagonistin macht nichts außer husten, der Weltenbau konzentriert sich viel zu sehr auf Details am Pol und ignoriert die großen, wichtigen Fragen, die man vorab hätte klären müssen und ... joa, wenn man auf Intrigen einer Adels-Daily-Soap steht, ist das hier vielleicht was für einen. Tu ich aber nicht. Daher versteh ich den Hype leider gar nicht. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Abandonment, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Miscarriage

jenny_librarian's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

Je ne sais pas trop quoi penser de ce livre. Le côté politique est intéressant, mais comme absolument aucun personnage n’est attachant, ça m’a empêché de ressentir quelque empathie que ce soit pour eux.

J’ai l’impression qu’Ophélie est demi-romantique, et Thorn présente plusieurs traits autiste. Est-ce voulu? Je n’en sais rien, mais c’est ce qui m’a semblé le plus captivant dans ma lecture.
Malheureusement, tous les personnages sont froids et la plupart sont dénués de caractérisation outre des défauts très superficiels qui deviennent leur entière personnalité.

Je ne sais pas non plus si le sous-entendu est intentionnel, mais les “provinciaux” semblent avoir un accent québécois et ça me rend mal à l’aise. Tout comme les références à la religion animiste, qui est fondamentalement liés à l’histoire coloniale et aux peuples africains et autochtones — pour la plupart décimés par les colonies françaises… M’enfin, c’est peut-être seulement mon interprétation de la chose.

Je ne sais pas encore si je vais lire la suite. Ce sont de gros livres avec peu d’action qui demandent beaucoup de travail cérébral pour peu de résultats.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Blood, Toxic relationship, Violence, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Classism, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Child abuse, Infertility, Miscarriage, Child death, and Sexism

Minor: Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Rape

mollieweitzman's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

I really enjoyed this especially as an audiobook! It took a few chapters for me to really get into it and become invested in Ophelia (at the beginning she is kind of written as a “not like other girls” character) but the world building, magic system, and the MC really grew on me! It helps that the narrator is really vocally talented, all the accents are fun and I’m excited to see where the story goes from here honestly :)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse and Death

midnightgarden's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I wish I could say I liked this book more. It's labeled as a romance but it is decidedly not. There's exactly 0% romance going on in this story. There's a lot of marital intrigue though! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Violence, and Sexism

Minor: Infertility, Murder, Child death, Gaslighting, and Miscarriage

penofpossibilities's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Classism, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexism, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Miscarriage, Abortion, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Misogyny, Murder, Suicide, and Torture

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Genocide, Infertility, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Vomit

zimmerlemon's review

adventurous dark slow-paced

3.75

I LOVED this at the beginning. The premise is sooo cool, the setting of Anima and Ophelia’s “reading” and the museum, the concept of the arks….so scrumptious. I was down with Thorn, I love a prickly love interest. It didn’t so much lose me in the middle as just go a direction I wasn’t expecting, but if you like court intrigue, you’ll be fine! The relationship between Thorn and Ophelia

didn’t develop in the way I expected, and the jump to where she thinks he’s in love with her kinda caught me off guard. They hadn’t been together in months, what did he have to fall in love with?? But I like the stage we’ve set now for a bit of enemies to lovers type of vibe.

Like a sci-fi pride and prejudice/bridgerton moment. I’m hoping the next books are good bc the end of this one roped me back in!!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Blood, Death, Domestic abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

hanahf's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Death, and Physical abuse

Minor: Child death

itsreirei's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I am soooo conflicted. I cannot in good conscience give this book a better rating...I REALLY wanted to like it but uhh...my brain was melting while reading it. 

This is an extremely slow start to the series, lots of information yet there's somehow even more things left unsaid and unclear. The characters are all two-faced and full of secrets, refuse to communicate - which wouldn't necessarily be a problem but it was just a lot, since it's not what I expected at all. 

This is a very heavy book to read (tbh, could've been a good 100+ pages shorter), NOT a fun ride, one has to put time and brain power into consuming it. 

I'll have to wait with continuing the sequels but also I am admittedly very intrigued to know what the fuck is happening because BOY was there a lot in here...

PS.: I ain't joking with the CWs, I might even have left out some, bruh

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Bullying, Child death, Classism, Death, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Pregnancy, Violence, Alcohol, Gaslighting, and Miscarriage

lokes's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

1.25

This was… well, is was something. 
The worldbuilding was a bit sloppy, but interesting, but plot and characters? Icky. Like, really bad. 

Not only did it have tropes such as forced marriage and hints of pedophilia (as soon as the guy was always called a “man with his big hands; like a father; etc” and the woman described as “girl with small hands; being generally very young and clueless and in need of constant help”) I had a bad feeling and boy wasn’t I wrong. 

I don’t know why so many people like a book which is filled with sexism, weird stereotypes, classism, racism and basically everything you don’t want to read about when it is normalized (or rather being glorified, because you just couldn’t catch a break when reading. It just kept coming)

I do feel like I need to apologize to the person I am now that I read this book because it wasn’t pleasant and I feel like I need to unlearn all of the very harmful stuff I just read about. 

The writing style’s not bad though, I could have liked it without the weird content. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicide, Torture, Incest, Miscarriage, Sexual harassment, Body shaming, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, and Violence

Moderate: Drug use, Blood, Child abuse, Body shaming, Bullying, Classism, Death of parent, and Confinement

snickahz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Torture, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and Police brutality

Minor: Incest and Sexual harassment