Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Seven Summer Nights by Harper Fox

3 reviews

mallorypen's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious sad 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

4.0

When Harper Fox is good … she is so good.

Immediately, the concept of archeologist-turned army captain-turned shell shocked veteran made for a compelling character; add in Rufus’ self-recrimination, repression, and trauma, and he was the kind of hero I wanted to hug and shield from all the bad things of the world. To see him find such a wonderfully soft place to land with Archie and the archeological wonders of the church and its labyrinth was delightful.

I loved the cosy warmth of the book, despite the tough subject matter of post-WWII PTSD, raging homophobia, misogyny and small-village in-fighting. I fell in love with Archie’s character just as Rufus did, and I adored the tenderness with which Harper Fox treated their love story. 

The side characters are almost as wonderful as the MCs - Alice, with her grief and drinking juxtaposed with her love for life and her sweetness; Mrs. Nettles with her kindness and absolute bullish defense against snobbery; Drusilla and Elspeth’s strange mysticism; the vile inn’s landlady; the doctor so obsessed with morality; even Pippin! They all made for well-rounded champions and villains and antiheroes in their own right.

The archeological elements were enjoyable and believable.

What WASN’T so believable - and took me slightly out of the story - was the amazing gender-affirming labyrinth. I thought including a trans character like Giles was amazing, but magically giving him a man’s body felt a little on the nose.

All said, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am so happy to roll right into Book Two!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: War, Violence, Homophobia, Transphobia, Sexism, Sexual content, and Suicide

pawtory's review

emotional hopeful mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.0

I have a really hard time rating this book. I listened at 1.2x speed so maybe that's why it didn't feel slow paced to me like it seems most others have rated (I though  the narrator was excellent btw). On the one hand it did feel kind of slow, but on the other as the title indicates it takes place primarily over just a week and my head has a very hard time reconciling that to the events of the book.  I really loved the relationship and characters and even what the sort of mystery ended up being (and of course,  Fox's consistently beautiful prose). Even the side characters are well fleshed out and even tho Rufous can be annoyingly forgivin while Archie was surprisingly wrathful, they felt extremely real and I loved them.  But that it took place in such a short time on paper bothers me bc I could much better picture those things developing and coming out over a course of weeks at least, or better, months. But it didn't, so the pacing felt strange. Had it been, I probably would have given it 5 stars. The only other issue I had was the employment of old-world magic. It was ok but I think I would have much preferred the "magic" be more in that realm of deniability or agnosticism. Mainly one thing in particular regarding a trans character,  which I'll elaborate on in content spoilers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Sexual content, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Death, Confinement, Medical trauma, and Transphobia

Minor: Injury/Injury detail and Suicide

Transphobia tag:

There is a side character who is trans and everyone sees as a guy except Rufous can't figure out if it's a joke at first or what. He misgenders him a fair amount in his internal narration tho not maliciously and goes along with it outwardly. Near the end, the trans character goes into thd labyrinth and comes out as his "true self," actually now in a male body. I think the way Fox handles this is well intentioned but I much preferred when Giles was simply treated as his gender in SPITE OF not entirely "passing." It just felt weird and a bit ham-handed from the perspective of a trans reader. This can all be forgiven seeing as it's set in a time period without the language or better understanding/ acceptance of the trans experience as well as being written/published during the time a lot of public trans discussion was still fairly new, but since it's the first uneniable example of magic in the book I thought it worth bringing up.

aplpaca's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Classism, and Homophobia

Minor: Suicide and Transphobia