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Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
15 reviews
bellabooks0423's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Grief, Racism, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Deportation, Hate crime, Child abuse, Sexual content, and Death of parent
nitya's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
RTC
Content warning: racism, sexism, police brutality, death of parent (ignore the twist), human torture and experimentation, attempted sexual assault, child abuse, murder, bullying, deportation, Harry Potter and Buffy references, (brief) sexual content, grief as a theme
Graphic: Death of parent, Racism, Police brutality, Colonisation, Sexism, Bullying, and Deportation
Moderate: Child abuse, Sexual content, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, and Sexual assault
zoepagereader's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.75
Graphic: Cursing, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Grief, Sexism, Body horror, Death of parent, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, and Xenophobia
horizonous's review against another edition
- 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
2.5
- First half: YA hard-hitting contemporary with a hint of magical realism and a great portrayal of loving, supportive friends and family even through the toughest of times (Rating: 3-3.5 stars)
- Second half: Close encounters of the third kind meets X-files conspiracy theories except their real but it all completely derailed the longer it went on (Rating: 2-2.5 stars)
There are also two very different writing styles:
- Very matter of fact with quite a bit of swearing - personally I don't think swearing is worth mentioning in my content notes (as long as it isn't excessively disrupting) but if you mind at all especially from teenagers, this will probably bother you
- Poetic, moving descriptions especially in connection to the magical realism elements
- Also in regards to the writing: In the beginning everything read very young.. I was really taken aback when I read how Sia got into her car because I thought she was at a max maybe 14 years old, but no.. the teenagers are all around 17 and 18 years old.
So, overall this was a truly a mixed bag for me.. the more into the second half I got the more I wanted it to end but I can't dismiss that I really liked the YA contemporary elements including (most of) the characters, their dynamics (minus the romance, I honestly didn't really get its fast development and would have preferred a slower approach and there are way too many sex scenes - I mean I get that I'm not the target audience as an adult but still.. I felt weird reading them and I'm sure I would have as well when I was younger) and even their disagreements because they felt real for teenagers.
P.S.: God do I hope the day comes when Harry Potter isn't referenced anymore to give (younger) characters personality or explain certain dynamics 🤐
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Violence
Minor: Car accident, Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Torture, and Xenophobia
◦ Mental illness = PTSDoliverreeds's review
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Racism, Racial slurs, and Murder
Moderate: Torture, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Police brutality
rosita's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Cursing, Death of parent, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, and Grief
Moderate: Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Gun violence
Minor: Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence
apierlessbridge's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Graphic: Sexual content, Racism, and Murder
mandkips's review
- 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
3.0
Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, and Homophobia
daniellew03cd3's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Racial slurs
Moderate: Death of parent, Murder, Sexual content, and Physical abuse
booksthatburn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I couldn't get into this one, it was just not for me. On the off chance that it is for you I will try to summarize what I think it did really well. It has a really cool blend of magic and the fantastic in both the extraterrestrial and the paranormal, building this world where her grandmother's ghost is just as real for her as her dad is, but also letting visitors from space be real too. It has cathartic and realistic handling of healing and shows the MC regaining a sense of agency after some sexual trauma which happened before the book began. The writing style is really beautiful and gives a gorgeous sense of the spaces involved, especially the desert. The MC has a distinct narrative voice and all the secondary characters were very well differentiated. The world-building for places was great, I enjoyed it a lot. I like the MCs relationship with her dad, it's not stress-free but it fits their situation really well. The fluctuating chapter lengths were used really well to help certain moments stand out or to make a point before going on to longer, more involved sections of the story. It helped either build or halt a sense of momentum, depending on what the pacing needed. It handled some pretty bleak real-world topics in ways that fit the story (details in the TWs below), they mattered to the plot but usually weren't played to hype up tension.
Now for the things that contributed towards my intense dislike of the book. If none of these seem like deal-breakers (or they sound great) then you might like this one. There's a lot of mood whiplash, really draining mood switches where you think something's going to be okay, and then it's not, not because of some big status change but just that a tiny thing shifted and now things are bad. The UFO-obsessed character felt weirdly out of place. He was constantly interrupting to just be very very wrong, usually several times in a single conversation, because details of the actual aliens almost never lined up with what the internet told him. I think this was supposed to be funny, but to me it just made the actual explanations drag on because they were filled with a bunch of misinformation that was rebutted or discarded almost immediately. It made it more confusing to track what the actual plot-relevant details were when they were back-to-back with incorrect information. I think it was trying to have the aliens be mysterious and powerful, but it ended up feeling like all their abilities were plot-convenient, so their limits were exactly how much would be needed to tie them to the plot, and their abilities were exactly enough to get things moving once the book began. Obviously that's kind of normal in fiction, but the aliens were so flat as characters that it was like the only thing to know about them was their powers, and those didn't have a theme or a through-line, they were like a fact-sheet that didn't tell me much about them at all.
There were too many redemptions and not enough redemption arcs. This one is tricky because I think one of the points it was trying to make is that people don't need to do anything in order for you to decide to forgive them, it's not something you can earn. However, part of the mood whiplash I felt earlier is that something really bad would happen, then the book would list a bunch of really excellent reasons why, even if forgiveness could happen someday, it's really not time yet... and then the MC would forgive them. The main story takes place over a pretty short period of time, so fitting one of these arcs in would have felt like a lot, but they just kept coming. This happens with her love interest, the person who's been bullying her for years, and one more time almost at the very end of the book where there just wasn't time to get over the level of hurt and pain caused before the book is over, but she gets over it anyway just a few pages later. She starts the book having held a grudge against someone (very justifiably so) for years, which is why I think the number of times she forgives someone without anything really changing was on purpose to show a change in her character, but it just didn't work for me. I won't spoil the ending but I didn't like it. I felt like it undercut the poignancy of most of the wrap-up, returning me to a sense of unease because the book is over but what I thought was the resolution (while sad) wasn't really resolved and now I don't know how to feel. If this is a "to-be-continued" situation I won't be continuing, I'm not hooked and I don't want any more of this.
Graphic: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, and Xenophobia
Minor: Islamophobia, Sexual assault, and Torture
CW for homophobia, ableism, racism, racial slurs, islamophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, grief, sexual content, sexual assault (backstory), domestic abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, PTSD, blood, violence, gun violence, torture (not depicted), parental death (graphic). TW for ICE, deportation, references to kids in cages along the US/Mexico border, references to Harry Potter (page 18, 66, 99, 179, 214, 250, 272, 359), reference to Sia the music artist (page 37).