Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater

22 reviews

chichisode's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

if Pride and Prejudice had a baby with Howl's Moving Castle. finished this in half a day, best decision of my life. cured my reading slump.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Medical content, Trafficking, Death, and War

Moderate: Trafficking, Confinement, Pandemic/Epidemic, Child abuse, Blood, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Pregnancy, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Ableism, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Violence, and Child abuse

kbairbooks's review

challenging dark emotional relaxing sad fast-paced

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

4.25

This was cute! I read this for my Bookclubs April pic and I really enjoyed it! I will say that I struggled with the split soul concept because if you replace that with autism you can see how poorly people with differences are treated. But I liked this book and how advocate-y it was for the oppressed and underprivileged.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Trafficking, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, War, Blood, Classism, Ableism, Violence, Bullying, Body horror, Slavery, Child death, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, and Child abuse

risten's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Classism, and Trafficking

Moderate: Medical content, Child abuse, Sexism, Ableism, Bullying, Murder, Blood, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and War

pvbobrien's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Ableism, Classism, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Kidnapping, War, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, and Violence

Minor: Blood, Death of parent, and Confinement

readwithria's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

5.0

Half a Soul is full of heart, and artfully combines traditional faerie stories with classic regency romance trope.

I was not expecting to love this book as much as I did! The prose is so lovely, and I have too many favorite quotes to share them all. The characters are compelling and while not all in possession of an entire soul, they are all in possession of fully fleshed out wants and desires.

Dora is such an interesting young woman, and reading through her perspective while she is without her acute emotional responses was fascinating. Seeing her “long-tailed” emotions shift and grow throughout the book was such a treat, and Atwater’s descriptions did them such justice.

Read this book of you love
🩵 faerie folklore
🩶 regency romance
🩵 grumpy MMCs
🩶 excellent banter
🩵 strong secondary characters 
🩶 hand touching (iykyk)

I can’t in good conscience end this review without leaving you one of my favorite quotes from the book

“You once told me that your cousin was a warm lantern to you, Dora. I know what you mean by that now. Of all things, you have become my lantern too – and I cannot bring myself to let you go out”

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Blood, Kidnapping, War, Violence, and Gun violence

Minor: Pregnancy and Confinement

kate_arts's review

adventurous challenging reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

This book is cheesy but in all the best ways. I enjoyed the dialogue and how the characters interacted with each other. This book is definitely a mix between pride and prejudice and howl’s moving castle. Dora is strong minded in the same way as Lizzie and has similar thought processes as Sophie.

I really liked how even though her cousin attempts to get her help she still solves her problem herself. I also enjoyed that even though she is perceived as “broken” she ends the book not necessarily “fixed”.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Trafficking, and Classism

Moderate: Violence, War, and Child death

katievallin's review

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Ableism, Classism, Murder, Trafficking, and Grief

Moderate: Child abuse, Medical content, Sexism, War, and Body shaming

Minor: Blood and Death of parent

rinku's review against another edition

adventurous informative lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I don’t have too much to say about Half a Soul since I quite enjoyed it and the cozy vibes it had. Because of this, it’s not the most exciting book but sometimes, even I like to read a more light-hearted book. 

This book follows Dora who, after her mom made a deal with a faerie, lost half of her soul which leads to her struggling with reading social cues. While she’s with her aunt and cousin in London where they are supposed to find husbands, she meets Elias who wants to help her with her soul. At the same time, there’s a mysterious sickness going on in London and they both try to find a way to heal it. 

In my feeling though, the book is more character-driven than plot-driven. It’s quite focussed on Dora and her trying to navigate London’s high society. I furthermore liked the topics that were reflected on in the course of the story, like the brutality of war, classism, and the link between sickness and poverty. Of course, the love interest Elias plays a big role as well. It was quite random how they met but I for once liked the banter between them. The ending was exciting as well with

Dora being captured in the Faerie world and meeting her other half. The ending was quite satisfying with the Faerie being killed and the captured kids returning

. 

I haven’t read many historical fantasies before, especially not ones taking place in the regency era. To be honest, I barely know anything about it, and I sometimes had the feeling that I lacked some of the historical context. Still, it was interesting, and I learned something about this time period. 

Additionally, Dora is a great and very likable main character. Atwater confirmed here on Goodreads what I already thought: that Dora is neurodivergent coded which I really love. It’s nice as well that in the end, she’s

not “healed” but stays the way she is, at least until she returns to the Faerie world

. It was a bit cliché how she has no parents anymore, but oh well. All the other characters besides her are likable as well and I even liked the romance which is rare for me in these times lmao. Also, can we talk about the amazing fact that men are allowed to cry in this novel? 

Half a Soul is an enjoyable and light-hearted read that still is able to talk about serious topics like war or poverty. Furthermore, the characters are so likable, and the historical setting is interesting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Classism, and Misogyny

Moderate: War, Medical content, and Death

Minor: Death of parent and Pregnancy

mmefish's review against another edition

emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

I've been enjoying "Half A Soul" up until the very end—even with all its  plotholes, somehow repetitive writing, at times wonky dialogues and a caricatorius villian—but the last sentence spoiled the effect. If I'm not mistaken, This MC's "condition" is an allegory to autism, and if so, then the whole message about being accepted as you are, deserving love even if you're different etc. gets destroyed by the end of the novel.

In the epilogue, after the story already came to it's natural—and satisfying—conclusion, the MC, apparently, somehow gets her soul restored. It's a terrible decision that erases all the character growth and quite literally the whole point of the story.

 
It could be a nice, heart-warming fantasy romance but ended up being an OK-written underbaked Disney-like adventure with a shaky background instead.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Child death and Murder

ashleycmms's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Xenophobia, and Medical content

Minor: War, Fire/Fire injury, and Child death