Reviews tagging 'Outing'

Sistersong by Lucy Holland

3 reviews

lilifane's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

I. Loved. It.

Some of the very first fantasy books I've read as a child were the Albion/Avalon books by Marion Zimmer Bradley. And especially the beginning of this book reminded me SO much of them, it has the same vibes. 

The story takes place in Ancient Britain between the departure of the Romans and the Saxons attacks. It's about 3 siblings, the children of a British king, about their life endangered by the Saxons, about their personal struggles, about magic (vs Christianity), about love and jealousy and betrayal and war and family and identity. Also, there is amazing LGBTQIA+ and disability representation. 

The further I got into the story, the harder it was to put the book down. I loved the atmosphere, the (very flawed) characters, the plotting of the story as a whole. There was one plot that was painfully predictable. Like it made everything more cruel because you knew it was coming. But then there were parts of the story that totally took me by surprise. 

So, if you don't want to ruin this surprise for you, don't research the ballad (The Twa Sisters), which the story is based on. I did after reading the book, and now I'm even more in awe by how well this retelling was done. Also, a modern version of the ballad is one of my favorite songs by Loreena Mckennitt... and I realized I had never paid enough attention to the lyrics before. Ooops. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Deadnaming, Misogyny, Outing, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, and War

Minor: Sexual content

nicnevin's review

adventurous challenging mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.0

Interesting story about ancient Britons holding off against the Saxons. I worked out the twist with a character pretty early on and the two sisters sides of tge story interested me far less than the one of Keyne

(Constantine).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Body shaming, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Chronic illness, Deadnaming, Death, Grief, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Hate crime, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Murder, Outing, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, and War

middumullu's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

VERY much enjoyed and heavily annotated. Many thoughts about arthurian legend (as you do) and  relationships (as you do). Also appreciated reading about a trans character and realized that I do not get to do that often. So that was nice. I appreciated that each of the main POV characters were distinct and that I could tell which one was narrating even without chapter headers. Some of the plot twists were very predictable. Unfortunate! Some of the characters REGRESSED imho

cough cough riva

and some of the characters were absolute icons and besties

CONSTANTINE and GWEN!!!!

. Let's chat! If anyone has thoughts I desire a discussion of epic proportions. What themes stood out to you?? What did you think of the sibling relationships?? Did you expect the twists???

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Deadnaming, War, Violence, Religious bigotry, Outing, Misogyny, and Death

Moderate: Pregnancy