Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark

130 reviews

solenekeleroux's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Colonisation, Confinement, Blood, Murder, Slavery, Kidnapping, Racism, Violence, Death, and Gun violence

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Ableism, and Torture

vivavia's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense 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? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Medical trauma, Murder, Vomit, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Blood, Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Bullying, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, Violence, Classism, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Toxic relationship, Confinement, and Slavery

ashatroyal's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional lighthearted sad tense 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? It's complicated

2.75

The story was interesting enough but lolled as the story progressed. Took me a very long to finish. It turned up in the second half though. Definitely some plot twists I didn’t expect. The book is described as fantasy but is more a war story with touch of magic. I also felt like magic was used a crutch to resolve certain conflicts. We really only saw it to save someone’s life. Although this wasn’t a romance, I didn’t feel the chemistry between Touraine and Luca. 

I like that essentially there are no gender roles. This books underlying theme is violent women in positions of power. 

I could tell from the beginning that Touraine was a bit naive of what’s really going on in this war. She’s a bit brainwashed. My biggest issue is that Touraine isn’t loyal. She goes where she’ll be accepted at the time. Between Touraine and Luca, it was bad decision after bad decision. 

Who tipped the soldiers off where Touraine was? If the other soldiers found her bound, how did she kill the Beledaire soldier? Why wasn’t that brought up? What took Luca so long to ask questions at the hearing?

Great world building and details. It was a lot of characters to keep up with. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Colonisation, Torture, Gun violence, Murder, Violence, Racial slurs, Racism, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Sexual harassment

fclancy93's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.75

A revolution
Of friends and of faith
Or of watching it all fall

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation and Death

Moderate: War, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Blood, Animal death, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Vomit

choicepotatoes_old's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

The main plot is, for the most part, delicious.

The story is extremely plot-driven, however, and so every now and then the characters will do or say something that feels (sometimes wildly) out of character for the purpose of furthering the plot.

The most frustrating example of this is

the growing romance between Touraine and Luca.

Touraine is repeatedly shown to be loyal to a fault. Every decision she makes ties back to her desire to protect her fellow conscripts, who she considers to be her family. Additionally, in the first few chapters of the story, we learn she's been in a years'-long romantic relationship with Pruett, whom she considers to be one of her two closes friends.

Given all of the above, it makes literally zero sense that she develops a giant schoolgirl crush almost immediately after becoming her assistant.

Not only did I have trouble believing Touraine's relationship with Pruett could be thrown aside so easily, the power dynamics between Luca and Touraine make any romance between them extremely problematic and--because Luca's feelings are reciprocated by Touraine in a way that feels reminiscent of a lighthearted romance--I don't think that's successfully addressed in the book.

Personally, I feel like the romance sublot would have worked better if it had been one-sided. Luca--who we're told has a history of taking relatively temporary lovers of all genders--could grow infatuated with Touraine, the one "thing" she can own, but can't *have*.

All of the decisions Luca makes regarding Touraine could stay exactly the same, but she would need to experience extreme character growth--potentially over the course of multiple books--and Pruett would need to be completely out of the romance picture before Touraine might start to have feelings for her.

Another unfortunate consequence of the novel being plot-driven is my inability as a reader to connect with any of the minor characters.

Perhaps because they had so little screen time, none of the minor character deaths had the intended impact.

All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the worldbuilding and the plot. Clark did an excellent job depicting the impact of colonialism on a colonized country, and the politics Luca navigates as future queen of the colonizing country are fascinating.

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3.75 - the parts that were done well were done really *really* well, but there was at least one major issue that negatively impacted my enjoyment of the book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Colonisation, and Death

Moderate: Racism

professor_jango's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Violence, War, Racism, Xenophobia, Classism, and Blood

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

alexalily's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Medical content, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Violence, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Gore, Police brutality, Slavery, and War

Moderate: Blood, Bullying, Chronic illness, Physical abuse, Torture, and Alcohol

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Excrement, Self harm, Vomit, Cursing, and Child abuse

kaschaller's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Violence, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Ableism, Vomit, and Chronic illness

Minor: Sexual harassment, Rape, and Sexual violence

kyladenae94's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

4.5

the beginning felt a bit…scrambled, but i’m glad i trusted the tikky-tokkers & stuck it out. i hope the threads set up in this book—

the “reveal” of what happened with cheminade feels a bit stilted to me, and we still don’t know how touraine got knocked out & also What About Cheminade’s Husband, he seemed nice

—will be tied up in a future book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Violence, Police brutality, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Torture, Gun violence, and Colonisation

Moderate: Sexual assault, War, Rape, Sexual violence, and Suicidal thoughts

leaflit's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Blood, Racism, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Colonisation, Confinement, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Grief, Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Ableism, Alcohol, Child abuse, Genocide, Medical content, Outing, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Terminal illness