Reviews tagging 'Pedophilia'

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

23 reviews

lady_valhella's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious 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


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

scmiller's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hailstorm3812's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful 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

This book has so much in it. So many plots, so many characters, so many trigger warnings (seriously check them, i didn't and almost stopped), but it's also filled with so much love that it is hard to critique it. It loves its characters, music, donuts, the community of Monterey Park, me, you, and every messy thing. Much like Katrina's music, discordant notes are brought together into an interesting whole. I'm typing through tears and my heart is full. (Though the people who say this book is cozy is a dead liar)

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

abookwormspov's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful 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


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

nerdysread's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-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

Wow

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

magnumdanger's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional hopeful slow-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


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

solspringsreads's review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed this book, but I’d primarily been excited to read it because I found it on a list of books with “trans joy,” and I seriously hesitate to classify this as a “trans joy” book. It’s a book where a trans character suffers immense amounts of abuse (in literally every aspect) and has to actively work through her trauma—and while there’s certainly a lot of joy that she feels throughout the book, it’s usually at the cost of a huge asterisk next to that brief moment of happiness where you know something bad is going to happen to her immediately after. She’s not quite “a woobie” in the trope sense, but she just borders on it enough throughout the book that it can be kind of exhausting. Even so, I still hesitate to say that her struggles are inaccurate to the lived experiences of trans women, especially trans women of color; Katrina suffers from a lot of mistreatment, and while it can be pretty overwhelming to read, it’s unfortunately pretty reflective of what it can be like to just… exist while trans. I personally just felt frustrated by it because it felt like her character arc never quite moves past the rampant transphobia she faces and how it makes her dysphoria worse; while other characters get to have sapphic love stories (and somehow still have subplots involving homophobic slurs) and family curses and all of these other things, Katrina’s main motivations are more-or-less to just survive and not get actively dunked on for, again, existing while being trans. She does find joy in her music and find a family of her own, but while listening to the audiobook I think I constantly felt like I was holding my breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Again, while this might be accurate to true trans experiences, I had perhaps hoped for a little bit more escapism from the hardships that trans people face. After all, this book includes a love story between a “Queen of Hell” and an intergalactic war general with the backdrop of a kitschy family-owned donut shop. If this can exist within the same book, I don’t think “trans girl experiences 0.5 seconds of unadulterated, non-dysphoria-inducing, no-strings-attached joy” would be a huge stretch.

This was a long rambling review to still say that I enjoyed the book very much. It touches on a lot of great themes, and the audiobook was fantastic. I just want to urge readers (especially other trans readers) to check out the warning tags for this one and to prepare themselves for some intense and heavier moments in an otherwise lighthearted and whimsical book. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

ka_ke's review against another edition

Go to review page

It starts off fine, the individual character perspectives are kept to individual chapters, but then around 25% of the book, perspectives change characters half way through scenes/paragraphs. 

I also think this book would benefit from a content warning in the beginning regarding the fmc’s body dysmorphia, suicidal thoughts, sex work etc. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

planning2read's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

lorriss's review

Go to review page

adventurous hopeful
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings