Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - A Winter's Promise

Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos

74 reviews

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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midnightgarden's review against another edition

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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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penofpossibilities's review against another edition

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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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zimmerlemon's review

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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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hanahf's review

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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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itsreirei's review against another edition

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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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lokes's review against another edition

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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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