Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

23 reviews

nadalien's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Rape, and Violence

Moderate: Grief, Sexual violence, Murder, and Suicidal thoughts

allydee's review

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cancer, Confinement, Murder, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, Physical abuse, Death, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Animal death, Drug use, Pandemic/Epidemic, Drug abuse, Sexism, and Sexual assault

jwjames's review

adventurous challenging dark funny tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence and Violence

hexie88's review

adventurous dark fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence

miaaa_lenaaa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense 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? Yes

5.0

MAGGIE U MAKE ME SO UNHINGED how am i to think about anything else now? 

This was so fucking perfect 

Its like if you threw spagettie at the wall and it look like a bug mess of lots of spaghetti at first and then you realised it was all one perfect single strand of spaghetti that maggie a left for you 

'But compassion takes work, and we were young.'

 'Maybe sadness was a kind of hunger, she thought. Maybe the two went together. 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THAT??? 

HOW AM I MEANT TO GO ABOUT MY DAY 

NOW MAGGIE???

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Domestic abuse, Gore, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Animal death, Blood, Classism, Rape, Death, Abandonment, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Confinement, Death of parent, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, and Sexual violence

readinbythesea's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense

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

4.0

This series blows my mind in the best of ways. I loved Oryx and Crake more than this one but this made me so scared to be a woman in an apocalyptic situation. Can't wait to read the last one! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Rape, Trafficking, Torture, Physical abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Sexual violence, and Pandemic/Epidemic

nabisteph's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Death, Animal death, Blood, Gore, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

backyardjake's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

3.75

Atwood has masterfully fleshed out and woven in two additional perspectives into the world of the waterless flood. Heartbreaking backstories and gut wrenching connections to the first book all end in a conclusion of dismayed happiness. Religous control, sexual domination, surrogate family and belonging, the guilt and madness of the survivor, and the unhealed scars of love. So many juicy parallels to the first book and a refeshing point of view. I may have liked the first book a tad bit more due to Jimmy's more relatable male gaze, but this is a hell of a follow up regardless of narrator. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Violence, Torture, Gore, Trafficking, Sexual harassment, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Murder

Minor: Abandonment, Infertility, Kidnapping, Drug use, and Bullying

victoria_mh's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

I picked this up not realising it was part of a trilogy - it's not openly labelled as such, and I only twigged part way through reading it that this was a counterpart to 'Oryx and Crake' (which I have since picked up but have yet to read). So I feel I have perhaps missed some context to tie everything together.

I have read other Margaret Atwood books and enjoyed them (in a manner of speaking, because they've all been rather depressing on some level or other); the last one I read was 'The Blind Assassin', several years ago now but I remember that book just 'clicking' with me; there was just the right amount of detail and plot. With 'The Year of the Flood', however, there's almost too much plot going on, while I would have liked more detail in places. Overall, something about this book didn't quite ring true for me. I felt an odd distance from the characters, though I liked the two main characters well enough. I also struggled to get a sense of physical scale - for instance, there's a spa within some grounds that I pictured being like a small park, but at some point characters travel across these grounds and they are vast. Conversely, people seem to able to walk around a city quite quickly. I don't know how much of that was a failure on the author's part versus a failure in my reading comprehension.

The writing seemed very heavy-handed in parts; the naming of some things was silly (CorpSeCorps in particular - a Big Bad but can anyone take that name seriously?); I felt there was a level of smugness or preachiness, of 'don't be too consumerist, kids; now here is another eeeevil corporation'. And I am someone who agrees that many corporations have unethical practices and that we need to take better care of the planet - but there was little subtlety here. It didn't feel like a particularly believable depiction of the future.

The sexual violence - and there's a lot of it - made for very uncomfortable reading, but that was probably the point - and depressingly, when I think about it, it probably is one of the more believable aspects of the dystopia portrayed here. If women aren't safe in a 'stable' society, what hope do we have in one that is falling apart?

One positive is that the book held my interest most of the time, and I read it quite quickly, eager to see how things would turn out - though

the ending was strange and inconclusive and I hope things are tied up in 'MaddAddam' (which I plan to get hold of)

. Others have mentioned not liking the hymns or sermons interspersed between the main action, and to an extent I agree; they could feel dull and forced when I just wanted to see what would happen next. On the other hand, there was something quite comforting about them in a book that is otherwise full of awful depressing things. Overall I thing they were a positive addition.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence and Sexual assault

nodogsonthemoon's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Pedophilia, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Infidelity, Murder, Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, Genocide, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Violence