Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - The Maiden

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

doodeedoda's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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aseel_reads's review

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dark 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

2.5

While I feel for the circumstances of the main female characters and how sucky their world was, I still didn't care for them or found that the story was written well etc. just not a great story stylistically

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posierosie5's review

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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g_monaghan's review

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

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tometrekker's review

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dark sad slow-paced

2.5

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happyknitter2020's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

Read as part of the Women's Prize Longlist 2024.
A fictional perspective of true historical event of a woman being killed for murdering her Uncle. The author gently placed the tracing paper of today's understanding of intra familial abuse & a coersive controlling & abuse male to the experience from over 340 years ago in 1679.

Wouldn't have picked this up due to the cover design, but glad the longlist brouht this to my attention, as helped me to reflect on previous generations of womens experiences.

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sophs_mood_reading's review against another edition

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sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

1679, Edinburgh Scotland, a Laird is murdered and his mistress the Lady Christian has been sentenced to death as a result, but will she escape, be pardoned or suffer the blade of The Maiden.

We have here a fictional reimagining of a true crime, where the voices of the novel are that of women and not the men who wrote the history books.

This novel had so much potential, duel view points of two women at the centre of the crime, 17th century Edinburgh in all its filth and poverty, class system opposition. However with all this opportunity the book just fell short.

I found it difficult to really connect with our two female main characters, finding them both irritating and well bad story tellers. This is a novel surrounding extramarital affairs (closed door) but it was bland and not exciting.

The last couple of chapters finally give us the “what happened” (well this authors decision) but there was no real suspense or emotion, it was all a bit beige.

Look I have to be fair it was great to see a retelling of a historical crime in the female POV but it just didn’t get over the line for me.

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