Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

163 reviews

ngrant88's review against another edition

Poorly developed characters and relationships, way too much plot without anything actually happening, POV changes mid paragraph and EVERY TRIGGER WARNING there is. This could have been a good book if someone else wrote it (and removed several plot lines).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Bullying, Child abuse, Outing, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Transphobia, War, Self harm, Adult/minor relationship, Deadnaming, and Sexual violence

j2teapot's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

This book is so well written and so gripping that I truely found myself planning to finish reading a chapter and then found myself turning the page anyway. The characters are full and complex, the storyline gives nothing away and the ending is somehow both satisfying and sad

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Self harm, Transphobia, and Emotional abuse

nixkelley's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Any book that makes me cry during the reading and at the end gets five stars from me. I have never read a story like this. I wish that I could permanently etch it onto my heart.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Dysphoria, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, and Deadnaming

scmiller's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Bullying, Dysphoria, Body shaming, Transphobia, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Racism, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Rape, Blood, Grief, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Gun violence, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, and Murder

Minor: Ableism, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Self harm, Pedophilia, Gaslighting, and Gore

jessamo19's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Violence, Emotional abuse, Transphobia, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Self harm

jesselopod's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful fast-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

4.0

Equal parts harrowing and delightful, a strange, moving and entertaining read with massive themes explored through a very strange plot. It was an unexpected mash up of a lot of genres I like, and it took me a little while to get into it but I am glad I stuck with it, by 100 pages I was invested in the absurdity which would life you up and then smash you down to harsh reality, and kept being surprised at where it went next. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Racial slurs, Outing, Sexual content, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Body shaming, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Bullying, Child abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Transphobia

kikind's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Transphobia, Racial slurs, Bullying, Physical abuse, Death, and Self harm

lady_bountiful's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Deadnaming, Rape, Transphobia, and Sexual assault

spadedigsbutts's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring relaxing sad slow-paced

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

2.5

 I really really wanted to like this book. Trans coming of age story combined with devil deals, older Sapphic romance, and science fiction magic? Absolutely sounded like my cup of tea, unfortunately the negatives just personally outweighed the positives for me. 

On a technical level, the book is a huge mix. Sometimes parts are written in the most lovely way with pretty language and clever witticisms, but other times I am struggling to even understand what some sentences mean and having to reread entire paragraphs over and over. The latter happened more for me than the former unfortunately, and the issue was exacerbated by the fact that about every few paragraphs there is a POV shift, so we rarely spend much time with any one character. As a result, we only have strong characterization for a handful of characters as we ping-pong between the "main" protagonists and multiple secondary characters without much relevance. The back-of-the-book blurb for the novel is a bit misleading, because it would make you think we have three protagonists, but we actually have more like 4 as there is a violin repair woman who gets an entire story arc and multiple chapter appearances, yet only interacts with the main three maybe twice? This leads into another major technical issues, which is if you are not good at remembering names (like me), this will be an awful experience for you. Almost every character introduced, no matter how minor, is often introduced with a full first and last name, and description, implying they will be important and recurring, only for them to drop off the face of the earth. Except when they don't and they reappear several chapters later and you, having by that point been trained to ignore most named characters, you have to flip back to the beginning to remember who that was. For context on how bad it gets with the names, I was live-tweeting my friend about my reading experience and by page 50 about 35-36 individual names had been introduced. If these are the sorts of technical issues that don't bother you as much, definitely dive in, but for me it was personally super distracting.

Speaking on the story of the book, it's hard to really call it a story. It would be easier to call it a slice of life with fantastical elements and characters interacting until the last fourth of the book where more of a plot with the central protagonist, Katarina, comes up and we get some much needed payoff to her and Shizuka's arcs. If there is anything to say about this book, it is that almost everything with Katarina and Shizuka is excellent!! I loved seeing Katarina come into her own and gain confidence under the protection of her strong and loving mentor figure. While the book never once made me believe Shizuka would sacrifice Katarina, the inherent drama of the possibility and what they're willing to do for each other is great! If this book had just been about them and condensed to cut the many many side characters I would have rated it like a 4 minimum. Even if you don't read the whole book, read Katarina's stuff!! It's really good!! Unfortunately the biggest weakness of the book is Shizuka's love interest, the space refuge Lan, who just constantly feels out of place in the book. I wouldn't contribute this lack of cohesion to the fact everything else in the book is mundane or magical and Lan's parts of the story are super sci-fi, as I've seen other books do similar successfully, but that she never quite gets integrated into any one character's life. Even Shizuka, who is Lan's romantic interest, just has entire scenes and arcs going on independent of her to the point I forget Lan exists until she appears. Lan comes with a number of plot points and character arcs that unfortunately just flat out don't get a resolution, like with her son who

literally murders two people, is put into stasis, and is then never once brought up again.

Because there's just so many characters and things going on, Lan just doesn't really get the development she needs and it hurts the book a lot as so many chapters are dedicated to her and her family. 

Anyways, if none of these are deal breakers for you, go read it!! Katarina's trans coming-of-age story is really good!! Unfortunately everything surrounding it is just very messy and underwritten and I wish i could have liked it more. 

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Racism, Racial slurs, Murder, Sexism, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Homophobia, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Deadnaming, Bullying, Body shaming, Transphobia, and Outing

Moderate: Abandonment, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Violence, Colonisation, Alcohol, Child death, Deportation, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Death, Classism, and Murder

Minor: War and Confinement

This book absolutely digs and then dwells in real-world racism, transphobia, and other bigotries. If you want more of an escapist trans story without real-world bigotries, absolutely put this one down. If you're looking for more cathartic real-world brutal depictions of transphobia, etc. you might like this.

clarabooksit's review

emotional 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Sexism, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Outing, Dysphoria, Sexual assault, Transphobia, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Emotional abuse, and Misogyny

Moderate: Sexual content, Death, Bullying, Physical abuse, Classism, Gaslighting, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Minor: War, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Self harm