Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

133 reviews

mountain_reader19's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Blood, Emotional abuse, Gore, Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, Torture, Child abuse, Death, Violence, War, Death of parent, and Grief

solenekeleroux's review

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gore, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Physical abuse, and Torture

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Child abuse

leabhar_love's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad fast-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? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Grief, and War

ekmook's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful fast-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? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Misogyny, Islamophobia, Sexism, Sexual violence, Torture, War, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Gore, and Grief

halfbloodprincess_hogwarts's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-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

I really enjoyed how magical The Gilded Ones is. How bizarre that there are female characters, when coming of age, bleed gold blood and are seen as evil. 

Our MC Deka is such an amazing character and herself is a suspenseful mystery. As in, she does bleed gold, is tragically killed by her own father, and can continue to ressurect herself.

Soon, she is united with more Gilded girls and together discover their individual strengths, train, and become more aquatinted with their "rebirthed" selves. 

I was EXTREMELY happy when Ixia (a magical shape-shifting creature) was introduced and LOVE HIM SO MUCH😭 Deka and his initial encounter is magically  spiritual, as soon as she lays eyes on him something in her being tells her he belongs to her. He does end up biting down on her arm and locking down, I would have freaked out, I figure to be a blood bonding. After that he's fiercely protective of her and the sweetest protective pet.

Then the whole premise behind the wicked creatures the Gilded are trained to help eliminate, Death Shrieks. There were so many mixed emotions and confusion combined with Deka unexpectedly understanding their foreign language. I could just weep.

The Gilded Ones has so much deep meaning and realistically resonates with the spiritual warfare Black Women and dealing with. I cherish Namina Fora for writing such a powerful start to this duology. I cannot wait to read the next title of this series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Sexual harassment, Violence, Sexism, Death, Misogyny, War, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, and Grief

zluke's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

4.5

The plot was engaging throughout and the characters were explored well. The main character has a lot of growth throughout the book. There were a lot of questions and mysteries throughout the book which are steadily answered and mostly tied up by the end. Some things I found a little confusing but overall a great read. 

It was a lot more explicit in sexism/misogyny and violance than I expected going in. There is graphic torture quite early on and this continues through the book. I felt it was important to the story though and the book explores the emotional impacts of this on the characters well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Blood, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Rape, and Vomit

Minor: Lesbophobia, Body shaming, Confinement, Homophobia, and Pregnancy

booksanna's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

Ok. This was amazing. The details and world building, character relationships, the moral impact, and depth of the plot are outstandingly glorious. If you love Greek Mythology, then you will love this. Very powerful and legend like story with a very interesting world.  The content is a little dark, but not depressingly dark(has some triggers). Awesome writing style, and I love Britta and Ixa. Has the Chosen One trope, so if you are not a fan of that then I would watch out.  Overall has very fantastical but still relatable universe. Looking forward to reading the 2nd book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Murder, Genocide, Emotional abuse, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Hate crime, Gore, War, Child abuse, Confinement, Toxic friendship, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Bullying, Rape, Slavery, Abandonment, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

abby_reads_books's review

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, Gore, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Sexual harassment, War, and Trafficking

alexture's review

adventurous dark sad fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, War, Blood, and Child death

Moderate: Child abuse and Rape

sauvageloup's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

A difficult book to rate because the start felt so different to the end

Pros:
- it really picked up by the end, I was fully gripped and just finished it now after hours of reading. The story and the action is definitely there, and really gets going.
- the worldbuilding and the fantasy were interesting and I appreciated the map in the front. I liked the side-characters too, Britta, Keita and the others, and whilst Deka didn't grab me, I did like her. The plot twists were such that I definitely didn't expect the reveal of

White Hands being a Firstborn. I thought she was gonna turn out to be evil, working for the emperor

.
- Ixu was very cute

Cons:
- Deka is very passive and seems to get pushed around by whoever is the first to tell her anything. She makes no steps to seek information for herself, but only when others are willing to tell her or allow her access (like to the heraldry). I thought she was a bit dim telling the other alaki all about her special abilities (she's pretty overpowered) from the off, but that worked out I guess.

She also trusts White Hands way more than I thought she ought, considering the woman had some mysterious big plan and wouldn't tell Deka anything. I fully expected her to screw Deka over and was a bit underwhelmed when that didn't happen.

- the start felt very amateurishly written, with very typical YA tropes used in an unoriginal way, and way, way too much exposition. The author introduces far too many characters who barely have a role and there was way too much telling. Every other paragraph had several sentences just narrating about the world.
- I hear what Forna is trying to say about feminism but it didn't carry off for me. The comments on the real world were too heavy-handed 
- the trauma throughout didn't feel realistically handled. There's moments of dwelling on it, but it felt shallow and didn't affect Deka nearly as much as could have been expected. The ongoing impact of trauma was much better shown in The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, imo.
- Deka's character also seems to change in the space between one chapter and the next. In the previous ones, she prays to Okoyo, she wants to be pure, she hates being a demon. And then suddenly she's having all these rebellious thoughts and calling all the other girls to face their natures. That character development felt totally rushed and provoked by nothing at all.

This one definitely improved and I don't know whether I'll check out no.2 when it's out or not. It felt like a book with a lot of potential, but it fell short, feeling too shallow and awkward to be really brilliant. There was also not really enough angst for me - a lot of torture and pain but very little of the actual struggling to deal and heal with it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Religious bigotry, Violence, Genocide, Gore, War, Abandonment, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Torture, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexism, Sexual harassment, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Confinement, and Sexual violence