Reviews tagging 'War'

Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim

18 reviews

sophiesmallhands's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation

Moderate: Death, Police brutality, Animal death, Murder, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Gore, and Blood

Minor: Torture, Sexual harassment, Child abuse, War, Slavery, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, and Child death

manaledi's review against another edition

adventurous reflective 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? Yes

3.5

An interesting magic theory with a good adventure. Might have needed a little more time in Qalia in the beginning to set up the class conflict between characters and why they hold onto beliefs so strongly. Sometimes hits you over the head with the moral questions of duty versus injustice versus family with a fairly brutal look at colonialism. Intrigued to see where we go from here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Colonisation, Violence, Xenophobia, Animal death, and War

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Murder, Death, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, and Torture

eahoffm2's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Colonisation

Moderate: Xenophobia

Minor: War, Murder, and Sexual harassment

readingelli's review against another edition

adventurous reflective 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Colonisation

Moderate: Violence

scrubsandbooks's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

3.0

I'm reviewing this about five months after I read it and unfortunately, not much memorable about this really stuck out, so I'm basing this off of notes that I took back then. The MC's search for her brother is what drew me in because I love a good sibling-related plot especially if there's danger involved or a case of finding the sibling and hoping they're not dead. The setting is very unique and I loved the Arabian inspiration. Qayn was an interesting character but besides that, nothing else appealed to me. The FMC and her love interest were severely lacking in chemistry and I was just not invested in their stories and development. A lot of parts in the book seemed to just drag and there was very little I can remember as far as scenes go that I thought were impactful. I will probably not be picking up the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Colonisation, and Animal death

Moderate: War and Grief

Minor: Sexual assault

honuzbubbles's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, War, Xenophobia, and Grief

Moderate: Gore, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, and Classism

joygarcialim's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

1.25

Imagine being catfished and after having met the catfisher and he’s a 9/10 instead of the 5/10 you were led to believe, and yet you stay on to complete the date because you have been compelled somehow to find out more about him as a person, why would a good-looking person catfish as a less attractive person, but in the first minute he stands up, rips off his face to reveal he was wearing a mask, and he’s actually a 2/10, and you stay still, confused but even more compelled, on the date. That’s the Spice Road in a nutshell. The blurb sounded so good, but it was a hot mess whilst being compelling somehow, if only to see how much outlandish it gets. Kinda like watching a train wreck you can’t turn away from.

Imani, the MC, starts off being extremely bigoted. It made sense for her to be like that along with her backstory, and yet it goes on for a persistently long duration throughout the book without any signs of character growth until page 180+, and by page 366 she’s still bullshit, exploiting people’s trust to serve her own needs. She was extremely brainwashed and even when that started to derail, she seemed kind of self-serving. For instance, she displayed sympathy for someone only because she wanted people to feel empathy if her loved one was in that same situation. It’s interesting to read the book from her inner monologue because she’s untrusting yet naive, believed she was selfless when she was self-serving, and these are themes can be witnessed from everyday people. Mostly though, she was insufferable. The characterisation can be very, very awkward because she some times showed introspection but only when people reacted in a way she didn’t want.

She was very stubbornly ignorant,

during the scene of the execution, she was still unaware of why her brother might leave the safety of their nest to fight alongside the rebels. The weird execution scene got even weirder because Imani expected the girl to say her last words whilst being executed, that is, whilst the noose around her neck and she’s suspending in air.

It’s certainly odd to say the least, it’s hard to tell if this a deliberate choice by the author but it adds on to Imani’s bigotry so it kind of worked.

None of the characters were likeable, I’m going so far as to say most of the characters are unlikeable. Even if they were on the side of the morally ambitious, they didn’t have many dimensions or layers, and were mostly just annoying. The only character which had any enticement to them was Qayn.

Taha was a whole ‘nother hot mess. There were hints as to why he might

hate Imani, but no clues as to why he likes her. It wasn’t clear if he displayed affection to Imani purely out of true affections or if he had other motives, and there was no indications at any point about it either. There didn’t seem to be much chemistry between Taha and Imani, he was nice to her when they weren’t alone for absolutely no reason. It’s not even a bad thing if people are nice to someone for no reason, but it didn’t work in the context of this book. He was an a-hole towards Imani preceding their travels and there were no nuances to show he harboured feelings towards her.

Speaking of nuances, the writing in general was not good. It was so unnuanced, and had a very-in-your-face way about the narrative. There were heavy, heavy themes

ie. white colonisation and execution. These very controversial and sensitive topics are thrown in and there would have been no difference in writing “ooh here’s colonisation, it’s white and it makes me feel bad, and I don’t know why!”.

The author will benefit from learning how to string a story which has highs and lows, peaks and dips; basically shading. There were chapters where absolutely nothing happened, and when the pace picked up, it is just full of action. I mean there was something big happening in every single chapter, but relatively speaking, it didn’t seem like it amongst the nest of other chapters. Everything went wrong, something had to go wrong every chapter from where the action picked up. Additionally, there were so many flashback insertions that it minimised the plot.

Examples of bad writing from the book:

“He is hurting deeply and raising defensive walls to stop anyone from touching that open wound.” 

“The weary impoverished hunch on the stoops of homes and flagging shops, smoking pipes, handling prayer beads, whiling the day away for lack of a viable alternative.”

“One of her kohl-lined eyes is the colour of wet clay and exudes hard judgment; the other is concealed by a black patch.”

“Curse him, he is a ship that capsized, no matter the gale. But I will try.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, War, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Addiction, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Death, Hate crime, Colonisation, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Violence, and Toxic relationship

kirstenf's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Grief, Emotional abuse, Murder, Classism, Physical abuse, and Slavery

Minor: Bullying, Vomit, War, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Sexual assault, and Religious bigotry

ashli's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective fast-paced

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

4.25

The audiobook version was a delight. I was disappointed mid-read to realize this is part of a trilogy and, at this time, the only book that’s out. Other than that I can absolutely say that my beginning assumptions were only sometimes right. I did wish that the Djinn featured more heavily, but maybe in future books?

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Slavery, Child death, Bullying, Colonisation, Abandonment, Grief, Animal death, and War

Minor: Torture, Domestic abuse, Suicide attempt, Police brutality, and Death

shannnne_reads_words's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Toxic relationship, Violence, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Classism, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and War

Minor: Death of parent, Vomit, Child death, Sexual assault, and Animal death