Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

44 reviews

makenna_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Violence, Misogyny, Murder, Police brutality, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Sexism, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, Pedophilia, and War

Minor: Domestic abuse, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Animal death

carochacord's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny

Moderate: Physical abuse, Trafficking, Death, Classism, Hate crime, Homophobia, and Torture

Minor: Vomit, Bullying, Outing, Child death, and Pedophilia

roodborstje's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Wow this was… not good. I obviously agree with the central message (lesbians good patriarchy bad), but the book conveyed it with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It was a whole lot of tell and very little show. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Misogyny

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia

Minor: Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Trafficking

tiffsbookjourney's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This is a beautiful book that can inspire girls and women to have a voice! I think its a beautiful story to inspire young girls to believe in themselves and stand up for what they think! It's diverse in race and sexuality and is such an interesting take on the classic fairytale. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Animal death

Moderate: Child death

fairy_internet's review against another edition

challenging hopeful inspiring sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, and Misogyny

Moderate: Abandonment, Animal death, Classism, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Homophobia, and Murder

katherineroseamber's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

1.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Racial slurs, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Minor: War

katie_kat's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful 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

It’s a twisted tale of Cinderella’s story set 200 years after Cinderella died. It was a great book with shocking realizations. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Torture, Sexism, Physical abuse, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing

Minor: Child death and Animal death

There is some minor cursing throughout the book, violence is mentioned a lot, there are a few parts that contain child death or animal death. There is a lot of sexism directed towards females in the book as well.

michellemaas's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing 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? Yes

2.0

This book only deserved 2 stars (meaning it was okay), but the romance between Sophia and Constance was so good that it almost deserved a star all on its own.

In terms of this being a fairytale retelling, I will give props to Kalynn Bayron in saying that the premise was quite creative, but the execution ended up lacking. My biggest caveat is that I found the story dragging along often, especially in the beginning (keep in mind that this is a relatively short book, with my version having only been 299 pages). When your short book isn't fast-faced it is a recipe for disaster. 

Another problem I had was with the foreshadowing being so heavy-handed. I can appreciate the author focusing on certain aspects so that big developments don't seem to come out of anywhere, especially when you are setting up a big plot twist at the end, but I feel that it was written so obviously that the ending lacked some of the impact it was aiming for.

The last thing I want to mention is the representation. I haven't seen many fantasy books with LGBTQ+ characters as the leads and that aspect was beautifully done. Sophia and Constance were just so perfect and had me fangirling since their first encounter. I also enjoyed the parallels of Erin and Constance since it is a parallel a lot of queer people have to deal with. Some more representation comes from our lead, Sophia, being a person of color. Again, I don't find that many books come out and say: My lead is a POC and I'm proud of that (it's always "olive-skinned") so I thought that was cool.

Ultimately I would recommend you read this because the representation is something else and it's important to support stories/authors with representation, but if you're just reading it for the plot you might be disappointed.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexism, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

bedtimesandbooks's review against another edition

adventurous 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Murder, Misogyny, Sexism, Domestic abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, Outing, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Sexual harassment, and Slavery

beestingbea's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

I honestly didn't think this book would be worth all of the booktok hype, but oh my gosh it totally is worth the hype! 

I thought I was going to try to be more stingy with my 5 stars, but there's no world where I would put this under 5, it's just such an incredible, empowering book. And the diversity is a plus, of course.

Is it a lil predictable? Sure. But do I love a modern-day re-do (not really a retelling) of Cinderella with a dash of Smashing the f-ing Patriarchy. 

I also rate books solely on how they make me feel and if they solicit emotion from me and am not a super critical reader, and I just loved this. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Violence, Trafficking, Toxic relationship, Pedophilia, and Kidnapping

Minor: Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, and Torture