Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

154 reviews

leilapeach's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Pedophilia, Religious bigotry, Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Sexual assault

soaphest's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

---

Amazing, brilliant & gorgeous. Just everything about this book is perfect, from the gorgeous cover art to the incredibly immersive storytelling. I’ve never been happier to learn that this is the first part of a trilogy so that I still have two more books to enjoy. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Misogyny, Blood, Death of parent

Minor: Gore, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Sexual harassment

The misogyny, rape and adult/minor relationship cw warnings are very period-typical as it (sadly) was the norm for that time. It’s the whole *hand wavy gesture* women being treated as objects with little to no agency over their lives and futures & teens being arranged to marry men twice their age thing. Also I wasn’t sure whether to tag for psychosis as Anna wasn’t really delusional, but her attacks were pretty intense (as were how she was treated by those around her) so that’s why I still chose to.

fraanini's review

3.25

adventurous challenging mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

I really wanted to like it but the pacing was too slow for me, and it got confusing at time as to whose perspective I was reading

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Religious bigotry

Moderate: Death

supermoon's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Religious bigotry, Death of parent

sfoerster's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

---

The book combines a variety of Russian myths, legends, and fairy tales together to make them exist in one world and time.
Female lead
Magic in real world
Complicated family dynamics
Mildly challenges religious views

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment

therainbowshelf's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

---

A girl finds that she can see creatures out of forgotten folklore. This, she keeps secret so that nobody accuses her of acts against their new religion and god. Later, a combination of forgetting the old myths and one man’s need to feel exalted above all others leads to deadly trouble that only she is positioned to deal with . 

I love books like this, that use existing mythology and folklore. This book uses Russian folklore to create a magical setting filled with helpful spirits that tend the home or stable, or steward the forest, all only visible to certain lucky people. There's a lot of religious scapegoatting in this book, and overall the book didn't capture my attention as well as I thought it would, but I enjoyed it well enough. I gave it a 4 star review, but ultimately felt so-so about it. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent

Minor: Forced institutionalization

sarahsbooklife's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Death of parent

Minor: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Pregnancy

ky_q_xoxo's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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

---

Once I got used to the narrative voice of this book, I really enjoyed listening to this one on audio. It was definitely an immersive experience, with some moments near the end getting pretty creepy, TBH. While I did like this book a lot, I didn't love it on the level of, say, Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, which I was sort of expecting to based on reviews I'd heard. I think I'll pick up the next book in physical copy, just to see if perhaps this is something that needs to be enjoyed more quickly than the realities of my life allow for with audiobook listening. But overall, Katherine Arden has created a gorgeous world, with both loveable and love-to-hateable characters. The plot is very much fairy tale-esque, so if a more whimsical narrative isn't your style, I would say to steer clear of this one. I'm excited to see where we go with (hopefully) Vasya in the next installment!

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis

ehmannky's review against another edition

4.75

emotional reflective sad 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

---

Beautiful. At first I was a little put off by how much worldbuilding and story telling goes into the book before we start to focus on Vasya, but it's so worth it. It's just a beautiful rendition of Russian folklore done in beautiful prose with a beautiful story and beautiful characters. The ending felt a bit contrived, but that didn't particularly bother me considering how much this book leans so heavily on fantasy tropes.

I liked that Arden encouraged readers to empathize with antagonistic characters like Konstantin and Anna (I still hated them, but I liked that she made the attempt to show that the typical "wicked" characters in the tale weren't villains at heart, just people with twisted intentions). 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent

Moderate: Child death, Blood

Minor: Sexual assault, Vomit

scatteredyarns's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence

Moderate: Child death, Religious bigotry, Death of parent