Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang

44 reviews

jdasilva's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad 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: Animal death, Death, Sexism, Slavery, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Classism, and Deportation

Minor: Cursing

tinybluepixel'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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gun violence, Infertility, Religious bigotry, and Abandonment

mk_loisirs's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I need to return to this once I gather my thoughts. Phenomenal. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Vomit, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

bookishvicky's review against another edition

4.75

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing group for a digital copy of Blood Over Bright Haven for a fair and honest review. 

“It was a beautiful thought– for a different world that was just, kind, and not about to collapse.”

Today is November 7th, 2024. And I am sick reading this book. I had to skim read the final ten pages for how much I wanted to scream and cry and throw up. This was not the thrill of Maeve Fly throw up, but rather the raw, hopeless, pulling out your hair kind.

M.L. Wang– you are a genius. You have delivered us a beautiful book about imperialism, racism, capitalism, classism, sexism; and you’ve done so in such a realistic way I almost want to refuse to review this book. 

While the opening chapters were a touch slow and difficult to get through, the climax seemed to last half the book. I was sickened reading things I’ve seen on social media in wake of police brutiality and recently with the election. I don’t believe I can give this gorgeous book justice with my words. 

“The path to God wasn’t laid for women like her. It was laid on their backs.”

Blood Over Bright Haven is bleak. It’s horrible. It shows the cruelties of men in power, language of war and conflict that negate human life, dangerous ideas that men in power in my country tote in our helpless faces. This book is violent and disgusting. This book is a raw, horrifying, nauseating truth. 

This book is so important. I cannot recommend it enough. 

However-- the characters are one kind of dimensional, and I feel like at times Sciona was very much white feminism-ing her way through some of the book. The end was... i dont know. On one hand, how else would it end, on another, it's so bleak and a bit white savior-y. I'm undecided. Maybe this book is actually horrible. I don't know. It's. Wow. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Minor: Animal death, Genocide, Gore, Miscarriage, and Blood

antonya's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Genocide, Infertility, Racism, Violence, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Animal death, Bullying, Hate crime, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

beccarwolf's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

A book that mirrors the worst of our society. 
Sciona thinks that she has broken the glass ceiling when she’s accepted as a Highmage in the oasis city of Tiran. When she remains unaccepted by her peers, Sciona maintains diligence in her work with the aid of her Kwen assistant, Thomil. Her persistence in her work leads to revelations that are hard to swallow and even more difficult to remedy. 
Sciona’s character development is both frustrating and realistic. She’s unlikable in her egocentrism. And I still liked her.
Top ten for the year? Perhaps. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Sexual assault and Suicide attempt

Minor: Suicide

sorakiras's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Hate crime, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Torture and Police brutality

Minor: Infertility

dani_reis's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad fast-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: Body horror, Death, Genocide, Gore, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Sexual assault and Abandonment

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Rape, Suicide, Torture, Cannibalism, and Pregnancy

cam_reads22's review

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Genocide, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Deportation

ohmage_resistance's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

• The first female high mage and her marginalized immigrant lab assistant do magical research and deal with some dark realizations about their society.
• I really liked this one. I saw the twist coming from the first few chapters. It did make the beginning a bit slower, although I had fun trying to figure out what was really going on with certain details. After the twist was revealed though, the emotional fallout was really well written and felt realistic. Also, that ending was extremely satisfying. I wasn’t sure if Wang could wrap the entire plot up in one book, but it worked out very well. On the downside, it could be a bit info dumpy in places, and it’s generally pretty dialogue heavy, although neither one of these bothered me.
• Although feminism isn’t the only theme in this book, it’s still a major one. ML Wang takes feminism in a cool direction. Most popular feminist books I’ve read either go in a girlboss power fantasy direction and/or they are female rage stories. This one was interesting in that it was a female rage story, but the rage was more for a marginalized racial group than purely about sexism, although both play into the same system of oppression. It's also a specific critique of white girlboss feminism. I also really liked the commentary about women in STEM. The main character isn’t perfect, she has internalized misogyny at times, and her ambition isn’t always a nice. This book also deeply understands how women are shamed for showing emotion, wanting things, having pride, and being selfish in a way that men/male scientists are not. At the same time, it does question if being proud and selfish (the peak of male power) is something that women should really aspire towards.
• I also really liked the themes about being part of a marginalized racial group. There’s commentary on racism, immigration, assimilation, and colonization, even if there’s no one to one real world parallel. These were just as much as a focus as the themes about feminism, and I think both worked really well together. Both themes could be a bit on the nose at times, but I think having them grounded in the experiences of the characters really helped them feel more impactful.
• I liked all of the characters and though they were well written. Sciona was definitely not an admirable person in a lot of ways, and although she got a little better, she still stayed flawed. That being said, I think these were all put into context of why Sciona turned out to be that way and how it compares when we see male characters have those same traits. Thomil, Sciona’s lab assistant, was really cool, and I especially liked his relationship with his niece Carra. Now I kind of want to read Babel to compare these two books.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual assault, Violence, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Religious bigotry and Colonisation

Minor: Forced institutionalization