Reviews tagging 'Classism'

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

20 reviews

letsgolesbians's review against another edition

adventurous reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Death, Colonisation, Gun violence, Classism, Murder, Death of parent, and Violence

sophiesmallhands's review

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Colonisation, Gun violence, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Grief, Police brutality, Gore, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Fatphobia, Classism, and Emotional abuse

kathigh86's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious 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

5.0

My first 5/5 of the year!

Hafsah Faizal is such an amazing author. Her writing is compelling and elegant. She is a master at trapping the reader in her worlds.

I absolutely adored the political commentary and how Faizal paralleled her world to the real world. I’m very excited to see how Ettenia evolves in the next book.

I loved the multi-POV in this book. We got a little bit of each character without giving away too much of their own secrets. I really enjoyed trying to guess everyone’s ulterior motives. 

I have read the Sands of Arawiya duology. I felt like I was in on a little secret. It definitely added to my reading experience but not necessary to understand the general plot. 

Overall this book was amazing. It was very slow in the beginning but once you hit part 2/the 60% mark everything is full steam ahead. I was not able to put this book down for the last 25%. So many things left unsaid too. I’ll be waiting on the edge of my seat for the next book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Blood, Classism, Grief, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death of parent, Gore, and Trafficking

Minor: Alcohol, Genocide, Stalking, Colonisation, and Confinement

kyoko2a's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Xenophobia, Violence, Classism, and Death

Moderate: Colonisation

Minor: Trafficking

stitchbooks22's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Classism, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, and Violence

linde13's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

I cannot stress enough how much I wanted to like this book. Fantasy heist led by a female criminal mastermind? You couldn't sign me up fast enough.

Unfortunately, while I like Arthie, she suffers from a "show don't tell" problem. When I think of other teen masterminds, like Artemis Fowl, Princess Azula, and Kaz Brekker, they're all given opportunities to prove that they're ruthless, manipulative, and brilliant before the story exposes their vulnerabilities. Arthie, unfortunately, never gets that opportunity: most, if not all, of her schemes result in failure or a close call, and she joins the heist in the first place because she's backed into a corner. She's by no means unintelligent, and she'd work if she were a smaller-scale criminal still working her way up the food chain, but for a character who's introduced as as a crime lord powerful enough to threaten the crown itself, she unfortunately falls short.

Arthie isn't my real issue with this book, though.

The book starts with some very awkward and forced flirting/"Admit it, you like him" nonsense between two people who have never spoken to each other before, and unfortunately, the romance didn't particularly improve from there. If any of the romances in this book had anything going for them other than "he's hot, she's hot, it's Just Meant To Be," then I was far too put off by all the awkward flirting, gushing over characters' appearances, and love-triangle-fueled immature sniping to appreciate it.

Which leads me to my next point: there are so many interesting relationships in this book, but other than Jin and Arthie they all feel underdeveloped--not just the romances, but

Penn and Artie,

Flick and her mother, the Spindrift crew, and Spindrift itself. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish this book focused less on the heist. For all that it takes up half the book, the heist doesn't accomplish anything other than getting our main characters together and setting up some exposition.

It took me two weeks to slog through the setup for the heist, and I was so, so close to dropping this book altogether. Thankfully, once it wraps up the heist and focuses on the vampire intrigue, the story becomes much, much more interesting. Or at the very least, it got me emotionally invested enough to want to read the sequel once it comes out.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Racism, Violence, Death of parent, Grief, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Death, War, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Body horror, and Trafficking

Minor: Misogyny, Sexism, Cultural appropriation, and Police brutality

To be clear, the trafficking is non-sexual. I'm not certain which category it would fall under, but there's a toxic parent-child relationship where the parent isn't outright abusive, but certainly manipulative and neglectful.

bookdragonkatie's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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

4.25

Started out a little slow, but holy crap did it pick up and pull me in! I loved the end and am so excited to figure out where how this is going to continue. 

Also, the audiobook has an interview between the author and her husband, (at the end of the book because of SPOILERS!) which was so enjoyable and fun to listen to. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Violence, Classism, and Blood

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gun violence, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

whatbeccareadnext's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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? Yes

3.5

This book was decent, but I wasn't really gripped by the story. It was so, so similar in a lot of ways to Six of Crows, but I didn't feel that the stakes were as high. The characters lacked emotional depth for me, so I didn't feel connected to them during emotionally charged moments. 

There were a few good twists and turns that I honestly didn't coming, although retrospectively I definitely should have. Overall, I think this series has promise, but I'm not sure I'm going to continue with it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cultural appropriation, Gun violence, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Grief

Minor: Child death

soniajoy98's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Violence, Blood, Classism, Racism, Grief, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Child death, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Torture, Cursing, Genocide, and Sexual content

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, War, Slavery, Stalking, and Hate crime

aseel_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-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

2.5

Pretty disappointed with this one. The premise should be right up my alley but in practice, it really fell flat. The 'romance' felt forced, the writing was a bit jarring, and I don't really understand all the plot twists and reveals that happened 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Sexism, Death, Colonisation, Slavery, Racism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Police brutality, Classism, and Blood