Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

97 reviews

_fallinglight_'s review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

2.75

This was insightful to early 21st century India issues that still spread out and rot its society today, although some parts can come off as trauma/poverty porn and there's some graphic, gratuitous prison sexual violence for really immersive bleakness. Neda's, and especially, Sunil Rastogi's sections to me were wholly unnecessary. A lot of the book is superfluous for that matter and at the 84% mark jumbled and unraveled to nonsense. But I liked taking the time to google the cuisine mentioned throughout that made my mouth water and for what it's worth Sunny Wadia's character and the story were entertaining but this is a big book physicall but not very grand in style or writing despite the intent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Classism, Death, Rape, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Drug use, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, and Violence

Moderate: Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Suicide

Minor: Abortion and Pregnancy

mariemaistrop's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Very cruel, tragic and sad but also fascinating. It’s a lot more violent than I anticipated so be careful if you have some triggers: rape, death, poverty, addictions. But it was very addicting, I preferred the first half but overall it was a hard one for me to put down. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Toxic relationship, Drug abuse, Abortion, Addiction, Violence, Rape, Suicide, Drug use, Death, and Blood

alittlebitnish's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

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

1.5

At the start this book was engaging. Elements of Ajay’s story and character have quite a journey. It’s quite sad but also laced in reality of society when the powerful control everything. 
I also loved the description of the beaches of Goa. this is mainly bc i’m natively from goa so seeing canacona mentioned was nice. 

But that’s where what i liked ends. 

Did not care for Neda, she screamed pick-me and just lacked anything that would show her own personality. Also, the fact that this book is written by a women and she was the only female character (a terrible one at that) is so disappointing. 

Sunny is an overgrown man-child who has convinced himself of his ideas of grandeur when he does nothing. He can claim it’s because of his father and all other complications but it’s just him. Atleast dinesh had more of a character and will than sunny despite coming from similar backgrounds and families. 

Scenes from the jail were traumatizing to say the least. The dehumanization of Prem and the descriptiveness of it was so unnecessary. At no point did it add to the story in a sense where it all ties together. 

idk why in the last 20% of the book a new character is introduced and we are given his entire story. But, nothing actually connects to the 80% of the previous part. 

The ending made no sense to me. Ambiguous endings can be great if done well but this was just not it. Felt like the book was dark for the sake of it. Just not for me at all. Took me too long to finish because just did not engage me, it felt like a chore at times to get through it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Violence, Rape, Classism, and Homophobia

quiettalker's review against another edition

This is a very good book but I made it passed the grooming and just couldn’t handle the torture. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Slavery, Torture, Murder, Trafficking, Sexual violence, Drug use, and Rape

Moderate: Alcoholism and Child abuse

infinitezest's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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

Moderate: Drug abuse, Sexual assault, and Violence

applegeorge'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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Addiction, Drug abuse, Violence, Kidnapping, Drug use, Trafficking, Murder, Suicide, Torture, Car accident, Sexual assault, and Rape

jacq_s's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense fast-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

bigbizliz1991's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Sexual content, Grief, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Murder, Sexual violence, Gun violence, Violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Addiction, Car accident, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Slavery

litletters's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Suicide, Trafficking, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Child death, Classism, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Car accident, and Sexual content

deeandtea's review against another edition

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

3.5

This book took me quite a long time to read. It is such a grim, dark read - very tense and sad and devastating. I really loved Ajay’s story. Hearing of his heartbreaking childhood and how he became caught up in servitude was just devastating. I really came to love his character. Neda’s story was similarly depressing, but I struggled loving her. The author wrote her with such fondness, however. It was easy to feel empathy for her situation and to see the destructive path she had for herself. 

From Sunny’s POV on, I struggled. He was such an unreliable narrator for so many reasons - the drugs, the prose became more fast-paced too. It was hard to keep track of his comings and going’s.

His kidnapping was when this story unravelled for me. Sunil ‘s story felt long-winded and completely disconnected from the plot. He became such a major figure too, I have to wonder why his name wasn’t closely related to the Singh/Wadia empire. His later “contribution” to Ajay’s story made the ending even more depressing than it already was.

 

I think a major mistake was made with ending the book primarily in Sunny’s POV. He was so incredibly unreliable and unstable - his story arc made no sense and his communication with characters we had met before felt pointless. I couldn’t make heads or tails of his relationships with his family, Neda or Ajay. 

The first half of this book was totally enthralling - so a 3.5 is what this rating will be. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Drug abuse