Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos

17 reviews

amartin48's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.0

This book was everything I asked for, I didn’t quite understand what I was asking for, but I ended up really enjoying this read! The world building is mind bending and takes a lot of focus to sort out all the pieces. Of the three main locations in this book, each are VASTLY different. I loved the test of memory and comprehension this book gave me, and it builds suspense between characters beautifully. It took me 200pgs to really get into it, but I’m excited to read the next in the trilogy! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Physical abuse, Gore, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Confinement, Drug use, Bullying, Blood, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, and Police brutality

Minor: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Violence, Suicide, and Pregnancy

jstilts's review

adventurous emotional mysterious tense slow-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

The first part in a series, this book nevertheless is just about satisfying for the emotional/confidence journey it takes the lead upon (albeit slightly rushed at the end but I carries through well enough in book 2). I won't recap the plot as that would remove the tension, but this book is basically about an arranged marriage between two countries - but our lead character has been kept in the dark about how much danger this marriage will expose her to, to the point where she has to spend half the book in disguise amongst those who wish her dead. It's an interesting mix of fantasy and what could have been a period drama (almost a Jane Austen romance but one gone deliciously wrong). It probably wouldn't have been enough to be one or the other, but both genres combined lift this into a compelling tale of intrigue as she tries to survive the world she has been thrust into, and rise above the limited role she is being forced to play.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Classism, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Racism, and Bullying

Minor: Animal death, Infidelity, Drug use, Abandonment, Alcohol, Murder, Violence, and Miscarriage

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

hshoue's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Torture, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, and Murder

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

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

heoleen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Miscarriage, Alcohol, Death, Pregnancy, Bullying, Gaslighting, Infertility, Infidelity, and Misogyny

Minor: Rape

bialves's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Death, Infidelity, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Slavery, Violence, Child death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Alcohol, Classism, Hate crime, and Miscarriage

tmcphetridge4's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

It took me almost 3 years to finish this book. It was quite a lengthy one and I kept returning it to the library with very little progress. I finally decided that enough was enough and that I should finish it off. The book was molasses slow. It has a pretty interesting magic system with lots of political and societal intrigue, but it was very tense with hatred between characters. Nearly downright torturous. That being said, I am intrigued to read the second book. I know the novels only get lengthier, but I want to know how much further the protagonist gets in the den of wolves. Or should I say dragons? The one thing that is really dragging me down is the somewhat incestuous relationship between the aunt and her family spirit. How does that even work?

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Pregnancy

Minor: Incest

Not entirely sure if the -incest- tag is correct, cause it is an ancient family spirit? But it feels like incest.