Reviews tagging 'War'

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

5 reviews

margot14's review

adventurous dark medium-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? Yes

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Colonisation, Slavery, Gore, Religious bigotry, War, Genocide, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, and Racism

bisonprints's review

challenging dark sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, War, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Death, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Racism, Murder, Biphobia, Colonisation, and Violence

mscalls's review

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Infidelity, Racism, Gore, Grief, Colonisation, Slavery, Torture, Blood, Death of parent, Death, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Trafficking, War, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Medical content

caterwaul's review against another edition

adventurous reflective fast-paced

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

3.0

I'm not sure I like any of the characters, but I also don't hate any of them either. It's also probably the point. This book is an interesting exploration of an alternative history beginning during the colonization of Africa, and so contains themes related to the actual historical events and the time period in general. While there are characters with strong beliefs in Christianity and who seek to convert other characters to it, most of the mystical, miraculous, attributed to the supernatural powers and events are grounded in an African religion instead- not something I've read before and found interesting. The chapters are short and tend to skip weeks or months at a time, which takes a moment to get used to. Overall, I found it a satisfying read. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Colonisation, Religious bigotry, and War

Minor: Xenophobia and Homophobia

sarah984's review

challenging informative slow-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? It's complicated

2.0

I really wanted to like this book because the concept is so cool: a steampunk story where African characters drive King Leopold out of the Congo. Unfortunately, that's not really what this book was. There were so many characters but hardly any of them were African, and the disjointed way the story was told with so many POV characters in little vignettes over several decades (Leopold is gone around the 50% mark and the rest is kind of bland politicking around WWI) that it was hard to really care what happened to any individual character. The conflict about the characters who helped drive Leopold out living on illegally purchased land is interesting but barely addressed. There are so many huge age gap romances for no reason, which is a pain because there is way too much focus on the romances considering how little time each character has to make an impression.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Homophobia, Racism, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Grief, Medical content, Murder, Slavery, Violence, War, Kidnapping, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Child death, Classism, Confinement, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Ableism, Excrement, Genocide, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Rape, and Sexual content