Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell

4 reviews

unluckycat13's review against another edition

Really vile, sexist stuff in this one. Not because it's historically accurate mind you, they never are when it comes to women. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Child abuse, Colonisation, Blood, Death, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Chronic illness, Pedophilia, Toxic relationship, War, Xenophobia, Slavery, Sexism, Violence, Ableism, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

daria66's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Mental illness, Child abuse, and Misogyny

girish0731's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.5

Brilliant start to a darker age and brutal retelling of Arthurian tales. The book starts out slow with its characters but picks up close to 1/4th into the book and doesn't let go of the steam and pacing. The atmosphere of 5th to 6th century Britain is portrayed in a grim picture.The characters are the most important draw for this series. Must read for anyone wanting to pick up a historical fiction with fantasy elements mixed in very less amounts.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Animal death, Grief, Classism, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Religious bigotry, Blood, Child death, Gore, Racial slurs, Racism, and Misogyny

yurana's review against another edition

What a absolutely miserable book. Not in that it was badly written but that everything and everyone in it seems miserable. This is sold as a realistic take on the Arthur myth, in with realistic apparently means add lots of violence and rape. I’m only six chapters in and is far there is not a single female character that has not been murdered, raped or horribly disfigured. All this seems to be perfectly normal in this dystopian world where people might talk about law but the only law that actually exists is “might makes right”. There seems to be hardly any positive emotion or friendship or even love (unless you count people laughing about the sexual abuse of a female slave as positive emotion). Women use men to get some measure of safety against a world that sees them as sex toys and brood mares, men use women for sexual gratification and as status objects. And above all rule the warlords most of whom seem to think nothing of slaughtering whole villages if it gets them power or money. 
Arthur himself has hardly made an appearance so far. He apparently objects to rape and murder, but not enough to do something about it, when it is political inexpedient. I guess that makes him the good guy?
There is also the underlying story of the rivalry between Christianity and the old Druidic faith. The Christians all seem to be uneducated fanatics (and sometimes also pedophiles… let’s throw that in for flavor, too), while the druids are really into human sacrifice. I have no idea who I’m supposed to like here. 
There is enough misery in this world already, I don’t need more of it. Especially since the book seems to have nothing more to say on the topic of violence and rape, except; “it happens isn’t that horrible(and/or exciting)?” Yes it is horrible and I don’t want anymore of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, and Torture