Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

135 reviews

szandra87's review

adventurous dark inspiring fast-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? No

3.75

The premise was promising. I admired the diverse characters, from various races. I found the book way too violent for the genre (mention of rape, people getting skinned alive, tortured in several other ways). Nothing is detailed but I was shocked. 

And this might be just me but this was the first time I understood "show/don't tell" when it comes to writing. Many relationships, both friendships and the romance is a little sudden due to the bigger time jumps. Developing these could have used a bit more detail.

All in all, I'd recommend to anyone who wants something extremely feminist but definitely not to kids under 16-17.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, Blood, Child abuse, Grief, Misogyny, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, and Death of parent

holee's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring 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

5.0

Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.

But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity--and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.

Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki--near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest threat.

Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she's ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be--not even Deka herself.

SO beautifully descriptive; I almost cried a few times! The touch of romance had me TInGLiNg <3

I almost nearly cried when I was reading the authors message to the reader that resonated with me: "To all my teen readers, know that this is a world I've created for you. If you can't find yourself anywhere, find yourself here". All I wanna say is to thank the author Namina Forna for letting me escape to this world you created and CANNOT WAIT FOR THE SEQUEL (published on 31/05/221!!)

 Content Warnings (when I list the content warning next to how severe they are, I categorise them by how much the detail there is in and not by how necessary the warning is)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual harassment

Minor: Child abuse, Rape, and Sexual assault

When Belcalis pours her heart out to Deka about her traumatising past: "Father trusted his brother, loved him... It wasn't even a month before that 'good man' sold me to the brothel. And they offered me to the most...particular client. The ones who liked to hurt children - like to watch them scream."

queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense 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? Yes

5.0

 5 ⭐ CW: death of a parent, racism, misogyny/oppression of women, violence, descriptions of blood and gore, dismemberment, torture, implied rape, child sexual abuse, PTSD, genocide, violence against women (including verbal violence)

"Are we girls, or are we demons? Are we going to die, or are we going to survive?"

"We who are dead salute you!"

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna is her debut nice, and what a debut it was! This book was glorious, yet brutal. I could not out it down.

We follow Deka, a mixed race black girl living in the Northern Provinces, where racism toward dark skinned people is rampant. Not only does Deka suffer from this ostracism, she is also found to be impure--meaning she bleeds gold instead of red--marking her for immediate execution. Deka goes through trauma after trauma as the villagers try in vain to kill her until an emissary from the Emperor comes to collect her for the Emperor's special army.

Deka trains with other "impure" girls and learns her new abilities, although she soon realizes she's different from the rest of the girls.

We get an excellent found family trope, chosen one trope, and even a slow burn romance. This book does not center in the romance, it's barely a blip. The importance is placed on the friendship Deka has with Britta. We get wonderful diverse characters with flaws. We even have a sapphic side character.

This story is full of struggle, betrayal, and long game outcomes. Although I figured out the twist fairly early, it didn't feel wasted. We also get fantastic feminist messages about the oppression of women born out of men's desire for power and control. Just like in real life, however, we can't lump all the men into one group. We get to see men being true allies and deferring when appropriate.

We get a magical animal pet sidekick! #TeamIxa forever. The world building in this was great, I loved all the fantastical creatures and their varied intelligences. I can't wait to see what Forna has in-store for us in the next book! Did you it's going to become a tv show?! It's going to be beautiful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Misogyny, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Blood, Gore, Torture, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Child abuse and Sexual violence

anakl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Torture, Body shaming, Murder, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, and Religious bigotry

bookdevourer's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? N/A

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Death of parent, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Child abuse

librarybookscene's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Trafficking, War, and Xenophobia

rachaelfryman's review

adventurous dark hopeful 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

4.0

One Sentence Summary: Feminist fantasy filled with brutality, battles, and bad-ass female warriors!

Reminds Me of: African Mythology, meets feminist themes, meets EPIC battles

Three Reasons You Should Read This:
1) The cover - I mean come on. This is GORGEOUS!
2) The powerful messages of feminism and anti-misogyny are on pointe!
3) There were so many twists that I did not see coming and I audibly gasped a few times! :)

One Thing You Should Know Before You Pick it Up:
This is extremely violent!! This should be expected in a book that features so many battle scenes, but please know going in - a LOT of violence!

Content Warnings: death, death of a loved one/parent, extreme violence, misogyny, mutilation, rape, sexual abuse/sexual abuse of a child, torture, trauma

Favorite Quote: “Never forget: the same gift they praise you for now, they will kill you for later.”

Sound Track:
Monster - Meg and Dia
Unstoppable - Sia
Bring Me to Life - Evanescence
All These Things That I've Done - The Killers
Zombie - Bad Wolves
Headstrong - Trapt

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Torture, and War

Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault

Minor: Death of parent, Trafficking, and Pedophilia

teatales's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

Very interesting concepts, a captivating read, looking forward to reading the sequel (it ended in a place where another book makes sense) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexism, War, Violence, and Torture

Moderate: Vomit, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Racism, Death of parent, and Grief

canascorner's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, and Torture

Moderate: War, Torture, and Physical abuse

filipa_maia's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

 What a beautiful cover!

I really enjoyed this book. Full of twists and turn the story is really interesting and grabs you right from the beginning. The story is very character driven, all of them really evolve, and that is very interesting to witness. All the girls are so strong and powerfull, I love it!

On a less positive note, I think that the story really lacks more detailed descriptions of the creatures (deathshrieks). I'm not a very imaginative person so, throughout the reading, I really struggled to compose a clear picture of the creatures in my brain.

This was a great, and very interesting, reading and I'm curious for the next book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, and War

Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, Child death, and Confinement

Minor: Death of parent, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault