Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - The Girl in the Tower

Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

6 reviews

andra_mihaela_s's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

5.0

From me, The Girl in the Tower gets 5 stars! 🎉🥰

After the events of the 1st #book, Vasya made a life-changing decision on how she wants to live her life. In this installment, we get to see soo much more of medieval Russia, and I can only say that was what I needed all along!☺️

CW : death, slavery, horror (supernatural), extreme discrepancy between genders, traumatic birth, loss of children, violent and humiliating outing of a person

This time I'll try to be more concise with my thoughts as this is a sequel.

In terms of setting and atmosphere, Katherine Arden does a fantastic job in transporting you in that era. You can feel the winter's harshest snow storm, see the forests alongside Vasya and the others, the frozen rivers used for travel and, definitely, you are walking Moscow 's dirt streets between horses, carts and merchants while women and children stay out of harm's way.

Now...themes and action : the story follows the footsteps left by the author in the first book...we get to see a heavier accent on customs, gender and society, how important was religion in those times and what role it took when people are faced with hard times, and lastly, the complex political playground that was Russia then.

I'm very happy to say that the political aspect drives A LOT of this book while always being weaved with Vasya's struggle to find herself and what she wants.

Perfect transition engaged😙👉 my favorite characters continue to be Vasya, and members of her family! A close second to our MC is Morozko!🥰 I absolutely loved their scenes full of meaning both towards their relationship and us! I feel like I come to learn peace with them🧐
Kasyan...now...this was an interesting character...his story balanced political, mythical and day to day aspects☺️...I was very happy to especially see the role he played in Vasya journey to accept her role in her family.
Sasha and Maryam were great, I both understood and got frustrated with Olya..not to mention...grieved with her, and, finally, I was left unsatisfied with Konstantin's involvement...don't get me wrong...what happened felt just right...only I wanted more.

That's it! 👉 go read the book!

Content Warnings

olivia_piepmeier's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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? No

4.0

Like the first book, this is a great winter read - so easy to fall into the world that's also in the midst of winter, and oddly comforting for the bitterness of winter to be relayed in what you're reading. I'm also rather impressed I didn't feel like I was missing anything having read the other book nearly a year ago. Folks that think "winter fairy tale in medieval Russia with some gender commentary" sounds good will dig it.

Content Warnings