Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Nettle & Bone

This was a good one! Thoroughly fairy tale, with clear heroes and villains, a curse and a princess to be rescued.
I love the concepts of the bone-wife and of the blistered land.
Well worth reading.

Content Warnings

mgondwe's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

I listened to this story on audiobooks.

I was surprised to learn this was a dark fantasy as I continued to listen to the story. Before I listened to this story on audiobooks, I had only read the reviews from the audiobook page, and most of the top reviews depicted this book as a cosy fantasy with a lot of humour. And the only reason I got the book was because I wanted to read a funny book to lift my mood (and if it included fantasy elements even better), so I was surprised to learn that this book is nowhere near as light, and the funny moments were greatly exaggerated. It’s definitely not a cosy fantasy read.

Also the demon chicken is nowhere near as funny as some people made it out to be.

I found it jarring listening to the the narrator switch to different funny voices for certain characters at the beginning, but I got used to it eventually.

What stopped me from dnf’ing this book is that I could relate to the main character, Marra, (including her love for knitting/crafting and other life experiences), and T.Kingfisher’s writing style, while extremely dark, made it easy for me to follow along and understand each characters thought process & I ended up getting invested and wanting to know if she would end up saving her sister from the abusive Prince in time.

**spoiler below***

I think there should be a trigger/content warning in the blurb for abuse and violence. As mentioned before this is not a cosy read. And there were certain scenes i felt uncomfortable listening to (reading it wouldn’t have made it better) including the domestic violence between Marra’s sisters and the Prince, and when Fenris explained his story and he blamed himself for failing to protect a boy who was being abused and ended up being whipped to death by his father.

Content Warnings

chelbelle122's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense 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? Yes

5.0

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cakehatwombat's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed the world building while also appreciating that it didn't go into extreme detail. What needs knowing is explained naturally, and what is unexplained is unexplained in the way that somethings just aren't knowable, as opposed to totally dropped and then never mentioned again.

There is a dash of a romance, it happens towards the end, but is frankly easy to breeze past if you are uninterested- no kissing, even.

Also: good dog! And good chickens, for certain definitions of 'good'.

Content Warnings

a_bow's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

3.5

This reads like a Grimm's fairy tale and feels more like a summary of an epic story. There is not a lot of world building or any real magic system. It's fast paced, fun, and allegorical. It had me thinking about how the patriarchy really hurts women from all facets of society. There is not a lot of character development and while I appreciated the main character being a 30 year old woman, I felt like she was very naive for a 30 year old. I felt like she did very little in her adventure and relied all on the other characters' skills. I would have loved if she took her feminine rage on a solo mission and just strike fear into people. Like she just snapped and you really see just how fed up she is with men who abuse power, with men who are bystanders to those abusing power and do nothing, and to women who internalize the mysingony and happily perpetuate it, and the women who don't like it but also dont do much to stand up to it until it personally affects them. I want to see her struggle with her faith to a religion that claims all are equal yet creates a caste system where powerful men are in charge and many times exaggerates/misinterprets the text to take even more power. I want to see a 30 year old woman who has seen it all/heard it all, who has had enough of the bullshit explode on everyone and everything. I want her to use her wits to steal, kill, seduce, threaten, barhain anyone to get her way. Overall I found it enjoyable I just would have loved more! It's like if Paris Paloma's.song Labour was turned to a book.

Content Warnings

belles9's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.5

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