Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - The Girl in The Tower

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Girl in The Tower by Katherine Arden

64 reviews

mmefish's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name.

This one... isn't as great as "The Bear And the Nightingale".

I still love Katherine Arden's writing and the way she shapes her characters but this book feels way less... mature? The beginning is fine and the middle section is great (I was anxious the whole time) but the ending felt rushed, unnecessary and trope-ish.

What I mean by unnecessary is, for example, this:
-

did the traitor really need to be Koschei the Deathless? It didn't serve any purpose rather than to connect Vasya to him, which wasn't needed. His character was good enough as a human and his evilness became a little caricaturish as well.

what was the point of incorporating Olga's pregnancy and killing her unborn baby? Just...why? I think Vasya had enough of courage and determination without it.

romance with Morozko. Not necessary and could easily be written as strong friendship/platonic relationship. She's about 16 years old and is often referred to as "child", so it's kinda icky.

And by tropes I mean: Vasya is special, "plain" (so many time it's mentioned that she's ugly and not a beauty, we get it), everyone falls in love with her; Vasya is good/better at whatever; lack of communication, specifically people starting telling something and just... deciding not to (I hate it so much); the "twist" (

"the villain was one of us all along"

), the easy escape at the very end,

teenage girl in love with ancient being

etc.
It read a little bit too much like YA.

Also, I'm really sick of

Vasya getting sexually harassed/assaulted.

I understand why Katherine Arden writes it but I dislike it nonetheless.

Overall, "The Girl in the Tower" is definitely not terrible but still feels like a letdown after such a strong first book.
_______________

Edit: decided not to finish the series.

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ciarramist's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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rotuna's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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typedtruths's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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maeverose's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-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

5.0

This one is equally as good as the first book to me, maybe even better. I liked it for all the same reasons I liked the first book; atmosphere, setting, writing, realistic characters, the interweaving of the folklore into the story, plus it has one of my favorite tropes (female character has to disguise herself as a man), and Vasya actually leaves her home to explore different towns/cities, including Moscow, and gets to be a badass (albeit pretty naive at times, but what do you expect from someone who's never left her very small town in the middle of nowhere until now?). I really grew to like Sasha in this book, despite him being a bit of an idiot sometimes

(like why are you focused on your sister 'sinning' by dressing as a man when she just saved several kids LIVES?)

The main antagonist was very predictable, not sure if he was supposed to be or not... but I didn't feel it took away from my enjoyment of the story at all.

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saoreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny hopeful informative inspiring 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? No

5.0

The deception and lies surrounding the novel's continued progression are indeed intriguing. The characters who play important roles in the story are introduced one by one in chronological order so that readers can focus on them. Not to be spiteful, but the way women are treated, with or without special circumstances, or simply as someone who is seen as insane, is baffling beyond measure to me. It's as if no personality can be bestowed upon a woman due to stereotypical beliefs and birthing machines alike, and addressing those issues was both frustrating and raging for some hopeful specks. That is how good this book is at evoking such emotions. I'm off to read the third one now.

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