Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

74 reviews

sweetsimplenothing's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, Child death, Death of parent, and Genocide

Moderate: Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Gun violence

clydeside's review

challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault, Kidnapping, and Rape

jennaem27's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault

augustar14's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

This book is so powerful. Very well done, hard to listen at times but all important because while set in the future, many of the experiences are based on reality or historic reality for indigenous Americans. Definitely recommend, if you're in a space for something that is heavy and strong.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Abandonment, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Rape, Addiction, Forced institutionalization, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Alcoholism, and Vomit

Minor: Sexism, Xenophobia, Confinement, Medical content, Cannibalism, and War

erebus53's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This is an award winner, no doubt. A rag-tag family of survivors journey through the wilds of Canada, evading the ever-present threat of those who would capture them and harvest their biological material. This is a story that is more about what it is to be human, than the speculative science of the future. Like many survivalist stories parts of it feel like (as one character puts it) "post-apocalyptic boy scouts" but this story is different from others in that the survivors are Indigenous North Americans, who are also trying to remember and rediscover how to live off the land, feeling the grievous loss of their language and their customs to the oppressive colonists.

spoiler alert.. ok not a spoiler at all; there are no zombies.

As the characters get to know each other and themselves better, it becomes clear that they have all suffered horrible trauma. The description of the physical sensations of trauma is real and visceral. This is the first time I have ever heard someone describe grief as living in the gut and in the backs of the knees. I have to agree (though I would say inside the knuckles also).

Although the teenagers in the group are scarred and damaged, they do have one thing that modern teens often don't and that is duty, and a feeling that they are desperately needed for the survival of their group. They have to look after the young and elderly, learn their languages to share them with future generations, and mind what the outcome of their "romances" might be. They are trained to move silently, to hunt and to track so that they don't go hungry.

Some parts of the book are magical, and based in the spiritual beliefs of Indigenous peoples. At no point is the book completely spelled out, or the rumours about the Schools where the people are detained, ever explained specifically, but I'm not upset by that. The ending is still satisfying, and the interpersonal drama is really what sells the whole experience.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Cultural appropriation, Child death, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Animal death, Colonisation, Grief, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Cursing, and Abandonment

Minor: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Cannibalism, and Sexual assault

lady_valhella's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-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? No

5.0

This nook was amazing. It was fast. It was horrific fiction that could so easily be reality. One thing it for sure taught me was that the language that was stolen from is mine to reclaim! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cultural appropriation, Racism, Violence, Abandonment, Drug use, Hate crime, Trafficking, Body horror, Colonisation, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Child death, Death, Genocide, Grief, and Rape

I marked all of these topics as graphic not because the imagery is always real but because the implication is. Also, some of the imagery is very real, very violent and very disturbing but it is a story that should be read because the atrocities inflicted on the indigenous peoples of the western hemisphere is this real. We must all bare witness, at the very least.

ragboii's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

2.5

The premise of the book is more interesting than reading it. After finishing reading this book, I was just generally disappointed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Genocide, Blood, and Racism

Moderate: Racism, Rape, Medical trauma, and Sexual assault

cepbreed's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? No

4.5

“It began as a rumor, that they had found a way to siphon the dreams right out of our bones, a rumor whispered every time one of us went missing, a rumor denounced every time their doctors sent us to hospitals and treatments centers never to return.”

 

So much about this book is traumatizing, it’s so hard to read. I say that, but no matter how evil the atrocities translated onto the paper I couldn't stop reading because of how beautifully Cherie Dimaline writes. Each coming-to story makes my heart physically ache, I feel like I know these characters and each of their lives is so personal to me. Thank you Dimaline for bringing them to life on these pages. I also loved having chapter titles. I feel like so many books forego them these days in favor of just the name of the POV character or nothing at all. Another element essential to the story and my enjoyment of it was all the foreshadowing. While in the dilapidated Four Winds the women of their group tell their stories, all of which are a dark premonition of the events of the following days. Those moments were harrowing. I love how Dimalinen made sure to highlight the voices of those women, and bring awareness to the mistreatment many like them suffer because of their presenting gender. The class on indigenous fiction that I read this book for has opened my eyes entirely to a whole new genre of books. I am unsure if I would've enjoyed this book as much as I did if I read it outside of a classroom context because my professor always offers very valuable insight on certain indigenous traditions that enriched the books meaning. For example the legend of the rougarou and its application to Minerva's story.

 

Minerva being taken absolutely killed me. This kind woman, understand her old age hindered their progress. She trusted in the younger generation to survive and sacrificed everything for them. I don’t have to see my own Harmoni in her to absolutely love the character but I do and it makes me all the more sad to see the consequences of her age. In the same way she is wise and essential to the survival of their culture her health is rapidly deteriorating. I dismissed her character before but now I admire her so much, one scene changed everything for me.

 

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Colonisation, Death of parent, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Animal death, Death, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Body horror, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Violence, Trafficking, and Misogyny

Minor: Pregnancy

hayleymunro's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Colonisation, Racism, Sexual assault, Rape, Genocide, and Child death

kirstym25's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Genocide, and Murder

Moderate: Child death and Sexual assault