Reviews tagging 'Dysphoria'

The Oathbound by Mercedes Lackey

3 reviews

deerlybeloved's review

adventurous dark fast-paced

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

2.0

This book gets two stars for one reason and one reason only; I enjoyed Need as a concept, and I enjoyed the world building that you see between the less ideal parts. Outside of this, though, I would not recommend this book to anyone. Any reviews you see will mention the same things:

Fuck this book.

Fuck this book more than I can possibly describe. It's disgusting, it's so preposterously insensitive, uninformed, and written like a trauma porn garbage heap that I can only be happy to know that the author clearly never

suffered through sexual abuse because

no one who knew what that was like would even CONSIDER writing half of this shit down. The fact that she still actively SELLS these books, not pulling them to edit them or rewrite them, is baffling, disgusting, something that should in and of itself make sure she never gets to pick up a pen or type on a keyboard ever again.

The book is written as short stories compiled together, making the pacing clunky, absurd, and hard to follow; but that is forgivable.

The plot, ridiculous pacing within those stories, and story choices all make it unreadable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Animal death, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Rape, Sexual violence, War, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Torture, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Confinement, Gore, and Sexism

Moderate: Suicide and Suicidal thoughts

Content warning for: sexual abuse, sexual violence, slavery, child marriage, basically anything that should be handled sensitively but is NOT. I will discuss it openly and honestly below, not giving detail but saying what the book decided these topics should be used for and it can be VERY UPSETTING; It is worse to read it as it is in the book, though, trust me.

The book discusses subjects of rape, sexual violence, pedophilia, and more in the worst ways. It drops them in your lap, shows you the emotion of the characters in a hollow way, and then makes the characters simply "get over" what happens to them. One of the main characters discusses being sold into sexual slavery as a 12 year old, she cries over her trauma, there's mild worry she expresses about going to the same city where her abuser was... And then the very moment her abuser finds her, she overcomes him (off screen), and is content with him not being imprisoned for what he did. She and the other girl that he abused are both okay with him being free to roam and with children being around him, with him still having all his money, because people made a song about him. It gets worse. Sexual assault and violence against women are in every chapter, thrown around carelessly and mentioned as happening to essentially every woman you see-- but the women aren't actually effected by it, they just mention it and move along, and no one is ever actually punished for hurting them...except... A man who sexually abused and murdered dozens of women is magically made to look like a woman, and then sent into a camp with his friends to be sexually abused until he died; the other bandits aren't ever punished, and the fact that he's going to be violently abused until death is seen as the ""appropriate"" punishment. When he escapes, the fact that he ""looks like a woman"" is portrayed as a horrible thing. The main villain is a demon who sexually enslaves and abuses women until they die. Only women. And he gets men to join him to do it too. The bandit brings him to the world after the main characters banished him the first time, and the demon ""makes him into a woman"" and then proceeds to sexually abuse him more. Later on, the bandit is said to have enjoyed being sexually abused. The main characters then get captured by the demon and sexually assaulted. Tarma is repeatedly sexually abused for over a day, and then it is outright said that she, herself, did something wrong by "letting herself" be abused. I'm not kidding. She also says that her Goddess not being with her while it was happening was worse than it happening. Right after Tarma escapes the abuse, after Kethry is threatened with sexual abuse as well, she acts as if nothing happens. The way they fix it all is by turning the demon "into a woman" (read: giving him a vagina and breasts) and he is so distraught by being a woman that he becomes catatonic and, after abusing and murdering countless women (but only women) it's implied that he can be redeemed through spirituality. After over a day of this, they both leave the place it all happened and then go to an inn and promptly fall asleep with Tarma glad that her Goddess came back to her even though ""she broke her vow of celibacy"". Oh, and all of this? The reason they're adventuring after the middle part of the book when they finally get the chance to rebuild Tarma's clan? It's so Kethry can get pregnant over and over to "rebuild" Tarma's clan. After sexual violence, abuse, and horrible, unspeakable things, Kethry is still only regulated to the role of incubator.

litalia's review

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.0

Book one of my decide-if-I-still-like-my-Mercedes-Lackey-books-enough-to-keep-them-on-my-shelves project and I have some seriously mixed feelings.

On the one hand, once I got into the book, I really enjoyed the stories - I like fantasy books that aren't about the end of the world! 

On the other hand...

• The short story that started the story isn't in this book - getting into the beginning of the book is hard.
• It's a collection of short stories not billed as a collection of short stories - lots of repetition and minimal overarching plot
• For some reason, we get the whole setup to a situation, then the situation is resolved off screen. This happens repeatedly. Why??!?
• There's something uncomfortably male-gaze-y about how the female protagonists are described (repeatedly, due to aforementioned short story situation - it probably would bother me less if it had been once at the beginning of the book).
• Rape. A) there's a lot. B) 
  The up-until-then-not-at-all-morally-grey protagonists decide to punish a rapist and murderer by arranging for him to be gang raped to death. This is presented as just.
• Body swapping
  A male character is magically transformed into a female body against his will. It is not handled well.
• Asexuality. I've seen several reviews praising this book for being early ace representation, and I suppose it is, but I was uncomfortable with how it was presented. Tarma is more accurately described as celibate than ace - she wasn't ace to begin and gave up her sexuality in exchange for power from her goddess. It felt like being asexual was presented as giving something important up, rather than just a normal way to be.
  Oh, and the ace character gets gang raped. Because of course she does. On the plus side, while she worries about this breaking her vow of celibacy to her goddess, it does not.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny

Moderate: Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Body horror, Torture, Dysphoria, and Kidnapping

Minor: Addiction, Genocide, and Transphobia

Rape happens on screen, but is not described in any detail.

bibliophilicwitch's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Torture