Reviews tagging 'Incest'

Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung by Nina MacLaughlin

20 reviews

lucysgoodfellow's review

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

 A novel about transformation, granting voices to those often silenced by history.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Eating disorder, Incest, Child abuse, Torture, Murder, Stalking, and Suicide

laserdiscreader's review

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

Incredible retelling of myths I knew well, recognized, and didn't know prior to reading. I loved the structuring of each narrator's story within the larger book which, per the author's note, was intentional and therefore I appreciated it even more. Because of who the narrators are, the majority are very tough to read, especially if the topics at hand are personally triggering. I'm rarely bothered by any questionable content and even I started squirming during a few of these retellings. But then a hard tale is followed up by a beautiful one and it just all flows so well. This was read during a time I'm only reading from the library, and I plan to add this to my personal collection soon.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Emotional abuse, Incest, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Violence, Cannibalism, Stalking, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Infidelity

eleniphant's review

dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

3.0

- I see what the author was doing here and mad respect for how she doesn’t hold back on how fucked up a lot of these myths are and how they all sort of cycle around the violence and punishment of women. But at points I had a hard time finding the line of too gratuitous
- I wasn’t the biggest fan of the writing style, sometimes voice felt indiscernible between stories. The first person points of view didn’t help.
- some of the modernized takes and dialogues felt tonally awkward to read
- I think some could’ve used more depth, it was getting repetitive
- there were a few strong ones I really enjoyed though like the Iphis one and Eurydice  
- and I like how the women are characterized and the tone is allowed to be raw and angry
- I was left uncomfortable by many but that also is the point so decently executed but my enjoyment really fluctuated with the stories 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Incest

courtneyfalling's review

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.0

Dark feminist retellings of the myths in Ovid's Metamorphoses? Conceptually I'm so here. But this collection was... heavy and very viscerally in the characters' voices and experiences. I have to wonder who the intended audience is because people who pick up feminist Ovid retellings probably already agree that these stories are about gendered violence and likely have experienced gendered violence themselves, but this collection feels very sharp and potentially retraumatizing to that exact set of people. Not all the time, and not in an intentionally dangerous way, but still... this was pretty hard to get through at points and I had to wonder to what end. 

Edit a few weeks later: the more I think about it, the more that the equation of sexual violence and vulnerability to cis womanhood in this book feels gender essentialist and slipping into TERFdom...

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Domestic abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Stalking, Suicide, and Torture

Minor: Animal death, Cannibalism, Dysphoria, Lesbophobia, Pregnancy, and Transphobia

theinvulnerabletide's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Rape, Pedophilia, Incest, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Child abuse, Pregnancy, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Homophobia

ellajoy12's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Violence

hunkydorky's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Incest, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Toxic relationship, and Violence

kirstenm's review

challenging dark medium-paced

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

4.5

I liked how this book showed womens anger and their sides of stories we know that are so often dominated by male voices. I did enjoy this book but as its retelling of greek/roman myths it comes with a lot of content warnings. I have added some but I'd look them up before reading to be sure this is a book you want to get into 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Incest, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, and Stalking

alambnamedpam's review

adventurous emotional tense

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, Child death, Death, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Sexism, Pregnancy, Pedophilia, Misogyny, Infidelity, Incest, Grief, Excrement, Domestic abuse, and Adult/minor relationship

aclaman's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Vomit, Transphobia, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Sexism, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Mental illness, Incest, Infidelity, Gore, Grief, Eating disorder, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Death, Deadnaming, Cursing, Child death, Child abuse, Cannibalism, Bullying, Body shaming, Body horror, Blood, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, and Addiction