Reviews tagging 'Incest'

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

64 reviews

kitanda's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Grief, Incest, Antisemitism, Body shaming, Cannibalism, Death, Eating disorder, Child abuse, Animal death, Body horror, Emotional abuse, and Gore

campisforever's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

A dark retelling of "The Juniper Tree," Juniper & Thorn is slow-paced with the repetition we normally associate with oral storytelling. The narrative is beautifully written and well constructed. While I found it difficult to stomach and definitely needed breaks throughout, I recognize that the discomfort was part of the point. I also often felt like I couldn't find a foothold, but realized about 3/4 of the way through that it was intentional--until Marlinchen begins to piece things together, it's a bit difficult to locate the narrative's bearings. 

This novel is a really raw and honest portrayal of various kinds of trauma, mental health struggles, and coping mechanisms. Many of the content warnings I've included are the exact warnings Ava Reid provides for the novel on her website. Please be mindful of those tags. That said, I was honestly a little scared to read this book because it seemed like a lot, and it was, but not in a way that glorifies the horrors of humanity and abuse. If you're open to a story that takes you through the darkest parts of our folklore--here, Germanic and Slavic lore--and gives you a glimmer of hope on the other end, it's worth it.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Medical content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Blood, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Medical trauma, Vomit, Body horror, Mental illness, Dysphoria, Gaslighting, Pedophilia, and Self harm

Moderate: Cannibalism, Antisemitism, Incest, Classism, and Violence

rowancaskey's review against another edition

dark hopeful mysterious sad 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

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Incest

janelleg9014's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I enjoyed reading this, but there are extensive content warnings for this story. It kept me interested, though, but it made me feel grimy, greasy, and dirty, based on the descriptions used. This is what my mother-in-law would call a "dirty book," and not for spicy content.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Sexual content, Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual harassment, Self harm, Animal death, Gaslighting, Grief, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Rape, Body horror, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Violence, and Sexual violence

pagesandtales's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Incest, Self harm, Animal cruelty, Gore, Cannibalism, Violence, and Gaslighting

tundratomes's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Misogyny, Incest, Gore, Xenophobia, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

meltingpages's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.0

I really enjoyed The Wolf and the Woodsman which I read in July 2021. However, Juniper and Thorn just didn’t work as well for me. I struggled to read this one, and in fact I put it down for months until I decided that I really needed to finish my ARC to finally write a review.

This is a very slow-moving book and there really isn’t a lot of plot, mainly just a lot of abuse and the main character feeling unworthy. The writing was also way more stylistic in this than in the first book, to the point where half the time I had no idea if magic was real or just a metaphor. In fact, there was quite a bit of this that was just metaphor.

I also really did not connect with the characters, and that’s something that I need in my books in order to enjoy them. They don’t necessarily need to be likable, but I do like to understand their thoughts, feelings, and motivation.

With this book being set in the same world as The Wolf and the Woodsman, there is no explanation to the social structure within this book so it’s almost a requirement to read her other book in order to fully understand the world this is set in. Throw in the fact that it’s been over a year since I read The Wolf and the Woodsman and I don’t remember much about this world. With this being a standalone set in the same world, there should’ve been more world building present in this book.

There is also a mystery of a monster killing people in the town, but there is nothing really going on with that until the very end and it was just kind of thrown in as a semblance of a plot. If someone were to ask me what exactly this book is about, I don’t even know if I would be able to describe it other than trauma and a little bit of a slapped together mystery. The first line of the synopsis also mentions the curse, and that really was just an excuse for the father to abuse all three of his daughters. I also found myself questioning if the curse was real or if the father just used it specifically to abuse his daughters.

I know from browsing through Goodreads that the author took her experiences as an abuse survivor as inspiration, I just don’t think that the execution was the best and I just couldn’t get on board with this because it was so hard for me to follow along with. because of the overly flowery writing. This entire book is trauma after trauma and can be VERY triggering so if you are going to read this, keep that in mind. Do I feel terrible that the author went through abuse? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean I think this was a good book just because of that.

As a warning, all the relationships in this book are toxic, a lot of scenes are pretty graphic. There are graphic sex scenes, killing and dismembering of a creature (animal death), plenty of murder, cannibalism, gore and body horror, child sexual abuse and incest, antisemitism, tons of gaslighting and abuse by family members, self-harm and suicidal thoughts, bulimia with some graphic descriptions, pedophilia, sex trafficking, and also a scene including bestiality. These trigger warnings were not present in the copy that I read, and I believe a few of these were missing from the comments on Goodreads that I think would be helpful.

This just really was not a book for me and unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy reading it. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Antisemitism, Body horror, Cannibalism, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Pedophilia, Rape, Vomit, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Animal cruelty, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Gore, Death, Child abuse, Body shaming, and Gaslighting

Minor: Death of parent

laurel_leaves12's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

The writing style is beautiful, but everything else was lacking. Not a fan of the gore or the extreme triggering scenes. Frustrated by lack of connection with characters. Loved plot twist but it fell flat because plot points were lackluster

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Incest, Sexual content, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

elly29's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

3.0

"Magic always implicates its caster." This was not my cup of tea, as it was dark and filled with traumatic experiences: gaslighting, sexual assault, and cannibalism, to name a few. The descriptions of sexual desire made me cringe, and many metaphors were overwritten.

*I was unaware of The Juniper Tree from Grimm's Fairytales, and that Juniper and Thorn is a retelling. The Grimm's tale is similarly dark, surprise surprise. It is a good retelling... I just don't like the original tale 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Vomit, Gore, Murder, Death, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Eating disorder, Sexual assault, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Incest

jamie_reads_stuff's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

2.0

I’m so sorry, the girls that get it get it, the girls that don’t, don’t. It’s me I’m the girl that doesn’t get it.

READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS BEFORE READING THIS BOOK. Honestly it felt very aimless and I wasn’t really sure where the story was even going. I almost DNF it but I read to the end just to see how it ended. All the writing was really well done and descriptive but this book is not for me. Maybe because it’s more slow paced? Or like I don’t get the gothic horror references?? I dont knoww

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pedophilia, Rape, Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Eating disorder, Excrement, Gore, Violence, and Vomit