Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Jade City by Fonda Lee

6 reviews

rnbhargava's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Classism, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Addiction, Bullying, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Misogyny, Stalking, Violence, Trafficking, War, Sexual content, Suicide, Gun violence, Murder, Racism, Blood, Confinement, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Mental illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Kidnapping, Self harm, and Death

Moderate: Alcohol, Sexism, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Animal cruelty, Ableism, and Gaslighting

This is the first part of a fantasy tinged saga about a crime family. All the violence and tropes of mafia stories are present here. Certain things are also essentially superpowers. That said, it’s also very gritty with hard hitting violence. There’s mental illness, there’s drug addiction, there’s deteriorating health of the elderly old leader. There’s suggestions that one character is a sex offender and pervert. There’s essentially ableism surrounding certain figures born to Jade user families but can’t use Jade abilities, ableism suggestions. There’s vilification and racism toward certain outside nations albeit because they’re also colonizing forces. Also, certain characters’ relationships with foreign nationals are heavily talked about with racist suggestion. The connection between drug addiction and potential suicide is a major theme in the story because it’s framed within the context of jade ability performance enhancement drug usage. There’s a lot of heavy themes to suggest while reading through this mafia family novel.

bergha1998's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.0

I think this was another book I went into knowing too little about. I knew it was a mafia story set in Asia, and that was about it. I erroneously thought there would be more romance or more female characters, unfortunately I was wrong on both counts. Overall, I just found it to be very dry, and the expositions went on for ages. 

Fantasy/Historical, Mafia, 1 🔥

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Murder, Body horror, Gore, Grief, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Violence, Blood, Colonisation, Addiction, Alcohol, Death, Cursing, and Gun violence

Minor: Sexual content

daydream_e's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.75

Amazing characters who are deeply flawed and yet so easy to care about. Excellent portrayal of civil war and the complexities of post-colonial development, as well as international politics - I’m  considering recommending this to my undergraduate comparative politics students as an enjoyable way to consider how natural resources, colonial history, corruption and crime, and international politics interact. Particularly given the author has no academic history/polisci background, it’s incredibly impressive that she was able to create a fictional world with such realistic politics, and it speaks to what must be an incredible grasp of colonial and post-colonial Asian history. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Addiction, Violence, Drug use, Murder, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, and Gun violence

Moderate: War, Suicide attempt, Chronic illness, Xenophobia, Racism, Colonisation, Sexism, Misogyny, Mental illness, Dementia, Death of parent, Suicide, and Gore

Minor: Homophobia

Racism, xenophobia, war, and colonization are within the context of a fictional country with obvious real world analogues, but not one-to-one with real life events. Mental illness and drug use/addiction are also within the context of a fictional drug. Violence and injury is often very explicit - think hard R rated action movie - but not dwelled on excessively. Grief is a major theme throughout the book for many characters BIG SPOILER:

including the death of a POV character

heather667's review

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Kidnapping, Body horror, Ableism, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, War, Addiction, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Drug use, Sexism, Death of parent, Dementia, Sexual assault, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Self harm, and Violence

Moderate: Fatphobia, Murder, and Body shaming

Minor: Homophobia

sarah984's review against another edition

adventurous 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

5.0

"She felt, strangely, that it all made sense in a perfect and terrible way. It only confirmed in her mind that the will of the gods was a conspiracy of many things; people laid the tracks of their fate yet were helpless at the same time. They’d all played their part in this—them and their enemies."

This book really just blew me away. It's a family saga, and a gangster novel, and a story about a formerly isolated nation forced to confront the wider world and figure out how to live alongside it. The world (especially the advantages and drawbacks of jade magic and how that is integrated) is fascinating, and all of the characters feel like real people. This book is long but not a single word feels wasted - everything that comes up even once matters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Gore, Kidnapping, Animal death, Medical content, Murder, Xenophobia, Addiction, Dementia, and Grief

Minor: War, Bullying, Homophobia, Slavery, Ableism, Chronic illness, Classism, Confinement, Infidelity, Mass/school shootings, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicide, and Torture

kinomatica's review

adventurous 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Dementia, Medical trauma, Murder, Car accident, Classism, Grief, Chronic illness, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Self harm, Death of parent, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Violence

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Self harm, Abandonment, Abortion, Kidnapping, Outing, Body horror, Bullying, Colonisation, and Cultural appropriation

Minor: Alcohol