Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

50 reviews

linora's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective tense fast-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

It gives off feminist lightly spooky princess bride-esqe vibes in the best way. 

My description of it is somewhat spoilery, but it's how I described it when recommending it to my sister. It is below. 

It is about a third born princess who finds out that prince charming has been abusing her sister. So she leaves the nunnery and teams up with a witch, a himbo, and a fairy godmother to go fucking kill him. 

I read the entire thing in less than 24 hours.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Child death, Pregnancy, Slavery, Death, Cannibalism, Physical abuse, Murder, Miscarriage, Misogyny, and Domestic abuse

katebella's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

Took a long time to get into the book (almost halfway!) but really enjoyed once I did

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse and Physical abuse

Moderate: Child death, Death, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Pregnancy

Minor: Slavery and Cannibalism

alisonvh's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny fast-paced

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

5.0

A superfun read about a woman setting out to save her sister from an evil prince. And the narrator did an excellent job of doing all the voices. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Child death, Domestic abuse, Death, Murder, and Slavery

fraise's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Grief, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, and Animal death

Minor: Slavery, Torture, Rape, Abortion, Cannibalism, Infertility, and Miscarriage

The slavery in this book is

magical indenture and a supernatural parasite; it's not analogous to any real life slavery at all.

dwarrowdams's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

It had some structural issues, but a really fun read. Love what T. Kingfisher does with fairy tale tropes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy

Moderate: Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Violence, Toxic relationship, Murder, Medical content, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Slavery and Animal death

theirgracegrace's review against another edition

adventurous funny tense medium-paced

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

4.25

As a longtime fan of T. Kingfisher's work, Nettle & Bone was a natural choice to read and a very good decision. Kingfisher weaves together fairy tale tropes and folklore to make a world full of fairy godmothers, goblins, and the restless dead. The tale is told with Kingfisher's trademark snark and humour from the perspective of Marra, a young princess whose older sister has become the abused wife of a wicked king. Her task is to kill the king and free her sister, and along the way finds a witch, a dog made of bones, her own fairy godmother, a demonic chicken and a foreign man whose freedom is bought from the Fair Folk with a tooth. The twists and turns of this book are as hard to predict as the mausoleum of the Northern Kingdom, and well worth the ride. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Violence, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Blood, Cannibalism, Classism, Misogyny, Alcohol, Pregnancy, Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Murder, Confinement, Death, Sexual violence, Body horror, Slavery, Child death, Animal death, Grief, Infertility, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Torture

Minor: Abortion, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Gore, War, Cursing, and Excrement

There is one particular scene where the main character's teeth are made to dance in her mouth and one of them is removed. It is very reminiscent of the "imagining my teeth falling out" dream but can be quite disturbing. There is also a character in the city which has a "curse-child", which is described like a marionette or puppet that chokes and harms her.

chele96's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

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

4.75

This book hooked me immediately. The story itself is simple but interesting and had me constantly excited to see what happened next. I do wish that we would have seen more focus on

the three impossible tasks, specifically the events leading to the making of bonedog

I felt like the story really skimmed over that part, which had potential for some really great world-building.  I think leaving it out probably helped keep the story so fast paced, but I definitely feel like the story could have gone into more detail with world-building, but I suppose that leaving some things a mystery kept us grounded in the MC's perspective. It feels very in character for her to stay in the dark about how the world works.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Slavery, Miscarriage, Death, Child death, and Domestic abuse

anandaclairity's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child death, Slavery, and Domestic abuse

laynerinke's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Miscarriage, Child death, Grief, Cannibalism, and Death

Minor: Child death, Torture, Confinement, Slavery, Animal death, and Injury/Injury detail

searobin's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

4.5

The first thought I had after finishing this was "that was fun!" which is a bit unexpected for a book like this. It was dark and broached some ser ous topics, and definitely had some horror elements but was still cute and humourous as well. I found it very well mixed.
I am a bit confused with some things like the Blighted lands. They kinda appeared and disappeared from the story so quickly, and the limited lore we did get about them did not explain enough at all. That is a bit frustrating.

I saw another review where someone said the MC didn't seem 30, but more like 19. I think YA fantasy books have primed us to think that teens are way more capable than they are on average - and of course they aren't average most of the time, they have powers or there's a prophecy and magic involved some how... I can absolutely see how growing up in the protection of first the youngest princess in a castle and then a sort of nun, in combination with a shy and introverted personality leads to a naive and timid adult. I am 31 years old, and absolutely wouldn't be able to do much of what a lot of MCs do in books. It's nice to have something that feels more realistic!

(I do want to take this moment to also acknowledge that there are so many incredible youth who do do absolutely amazing things. The young activist fighting for climate change measures, Indigenous rights and Land Back, BLM, Palestine, etc... are so great. I can see how the heros of YA fantasy could do it, we do have real world examples, it's just also nice to see a random 30 year old with limited life experience manage to do something as well!)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Slavery, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Confinement, Child death, Torture, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Body horror, Death, Animal death, and Abortion