Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

95 reviews

birtelesemann's review

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Vomit, Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Violence, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Murder, Body horror, Death of parent, Eating disorder, and Rape

Moderate: Cannibalism

Minor: Abortion

greenwillow77's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal death, Death of parent, and Blood

Moderate: Child abuse and Eating disorder

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

carlymb's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I liked how the book slowly unfolded the mystery. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters. The protagonist’s self-harm and eating disorder felt out of place in this story, and didn’t make me like the character much, other than illustrating how beat down she was was everyone including herself.  

Look at trigger warnings before reading this book, cause it has a lot. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Self harm, and Adult/minor relationship

nicolescottwv's review

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Rape, Cannibalism, Gore, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Vomit, Alcoholism, Sexual content, and Xenophobia

Minor: Death of parent

readwithria's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Juniper & Thorn is a haunting and deeply disturbing book, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Marlinchen is such a complex character, and I love how she changes throughout the book. Sevas reminds me so much of how dance was both a great love of mine and also how it wrecked my body and my confidence for many years. There was so much truth in this book that really shook me to my core, and I would definitely recommend it.

That said, this book is fantasy horror and has quite a few potential triggers. Ava Reid has a list of content warnings on their Tumblr, and I highly encourage everyone to check them before reading this book. I have included them in the content warning section of this review as well.

Ava Reid has such poetic prose, and I love reading what she writes. I’ll definitely be reading more from them in the future. 4 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Vomit

Moderate: Death, Antisemitism, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Eating disorder, Death of parent, Xenophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Incest, Self harm, Pedophilia, Cannibalism, and Animal death

sarahbethhh's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Body horror, Eating disorder, Blood, Domestic abuse, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Medical trauma, and Adult/minor relationship

morgangd's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-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? Yes

3.0

An intense tale of trauma in dark fairy tale mode, with every trigger warning under the sun and maybe, just maybe, actually too crass. But it did move me at parts.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Murder, Body shaming, Gore, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Rape, Gaslighting, Sexism, Antisemitism, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Abandonment, Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcoholism

violetlily13's review against another edition

challenging dark tense 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

4.0

 Although this dark gothic fantasy is inspired by the works of Angela Carter and Catherynne Valente's Deathless, Juniper & Thorn veers from those authors' depictions of women overcoming violence and corruption by becoming violent and corrupt themselves. Instead, Reid weaves a story about two young people overcoming horrific abuse throughout their lives by supporting one another, standing up to their abusers, and, at least in the case of the narrator, revealing her abusers' monstrosity to the world. That's probably the most fairy-tale aspect of the story, to be honest. Nonetheless, the ending is cathartic and provides a hopeful future that I wasn't expecting, considering how awful things were for the main characters.

There's a lot working in favour of this novel: the unreliable narrator, the complex secondary characters (for the most part), the creepy atmosphere of the crumbling old house, and, most of all, the in-depth world-building. The setting was my favourite part, and I would love for Reid to explore it further or from another angle in future stories because she handled the infiltration of the modern world into an ancient magical past in a highly satisfactory way - she sketches out just enough without overdoing it while also creating something rich and vibrant.

I'm glad that I picked this one up. It does have flaws - such as the "instalove", the underdeveloped love interest, and the heavy heteronormativity - and I think I would have liked it better ten years ago during my Deathless stage, but it's a far better Slavic-inspired fantasy than The Bear and the Nightingale and I'll keep an eye out for what Reid writes next. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cannibalism, Eating disorder, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Death of parent

hprimo12's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

This book was supposed to be a gritty retelling of a fairytale, but the topics that made it "gritty" were not handled well and left me hating the main character. I did not find any part of the story compelling, and it pained me to finish it. I stongly do not recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Cultural appropriation, Death, Domestic abuse, Antisemitism, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Incest, Racism, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Violence, and Xenophobia

The "love" story part of this book was only really based on trauma bonding, as the characters frankly do not really spend much time together before being madly in love. Additionally, the story is seemingly centered on how much the main character is suffering at the hands of her sisters despite the fact that they are also being abused by her father. Granted they suffer a different kind of abuse, but the author and the main character make no mention of this at all. To the point where the main character kills one of her sister and shows no remorse. The last thing that I will say is that I found any LGBT+ representation to be layered in negative stereotypes or villainized. There are many other things that I could point out about the world or the overtly sexualized situations, but I don't want to give this book much more thought.

kiandrareadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Self harm, Blood, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Cannibalism, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Animal death, Body horror, Death of parent, and Gore

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship