Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

12 reviews

dreamdust1600's review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious 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

Its sapphic and it slaps

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Abandonment, Lesbophobia, Toxic relationship, Classism, Murder, Confinement, Blood, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Medical content, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and Police brutality

Moderate: Sexual harassment

jainabee's review

adventurous emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.75

I got this in the Banned Books Box subscription and was curious to read something totally new to me. Had a hard time putting it down and now am hungry for more! The story twists and turns in ways that startled me and I gave up trying to predict anything about the characters. How refreshing! And lovely writing. A pleasure to read and I'm so glad there's more!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Classism, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Drug use, Slavery, and Blood

Moderate: Police brutality, Child death, Grief, Kidnapping, Torture, Murder, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Death of parent, Pregnancy, and War

Considering all of the challenging content in the book, it is all handled in a way that I could tolerate (I am somewhat squeamish) and I did not feel personally triggered. I have no problem with putting a book down if the violence is too graphic or gory for my tastes or if the cruelty and abuse goes beyond a brief explicit detail.

amazingracerose's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful reflective 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship

Moderate: Confinement, Pregnancy, Police brutality, Lesbophobia, and Emotional abuse

strawberrytheauthor's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

The beginning wasn’t very interesting but then the middle got better. I was getting excited to read the second one until the very last line. That last line made me so very angry, however I still need to read the second book to see what happens with said last line. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Torture, Abandonment, Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child death, Classism, Confinement, Death, Deportation, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Lesbophobia, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content and Body horror

Minor: Child abuse

nicnevin's review

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

3.0

So this is the first book I've read from this author and its... Alright? I found the ending quite... Abrupt and the worldbuilding is a little slapdash however I realise that this is already set in a world from other books she wrote. 

Sid and Nirrim are a cute couple but I don't know how it ends. I guess leaving the book on such an abrupt ending ticked me off because it felt like a lot of build up for not much pay off bit I suppose that's why is more than one book. 

the magic blood reveal was pretty obvious so it annoyed me it took everyone so long to figure it out. Also shouldnt diluted blood be a yellowy orange colour? Maybe magic blood hits different idk

Don't get me wrong, the book is okay but just didn't gel with me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Medical content, Murder, Outing, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Ableism, Child death, Drug abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Blood, Drug use, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

claudiamacpherson's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Child death, Classism, and Gaslighting

Minor: Lesbophobia, Sexual content, Alcohol, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Homophobia, Police brutality, and Violence

haylzno's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring tense slow-paced

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

2.75

This was almost a DNF for me. 
The plot really seemed to... stall, like a bunch of times. I found myself getting bored frequently. 
I did listen to this as an audiobook and narration is really a make it break thing for me and I wasn't a huge fan of the narration, so honestly that played a big part. 

I always love me so good queer rep. But the MC and her relationship with her "mother" made me irrationally frustrated. By the time I decided I wanted to DNF I was only about an hour from finishing it so I pushed through, and honestly I don't remember a whole lot because I just couldn't make myself care. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Classism, Death of parent, Police brutality, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Homophobia and Drug use

k_aro's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.25

WHEW! I really didn't expect much from The Midnight Lie—be as it may, I'm a little bit of a snob over fantasy novels due to the fact that I read a large quantity as a kid, and I saw it recommended from BookTok, which, based on my previous BookTok books has been... a mixed bag. Admittedly I wasn't shocked by many of the reveals, but I don't think that's a critique of the book; I think it's smart about revealing just enough that it makes sense on re-reads.

That said, I did not expect the ending! It's not like, a cheap plot twist, but it's such a painful refusal of closure that it hurts me just thinking about it. I didn't cry over the ending, but sheesh, I'm really looking forward to reading the next book. I also think it's a super well-written villain ending—I've read some books *coughs* The Young Elites *coughs* that REALLY muck up the villain ending and essentially spoil the experience of having read the book at all.

I do have some things I don't love about this book: for one, that Nirrim is so blind to Raven's consistent emotional/domestic abuse, despite her ability to spot it in other people (i.e. Aden). Like, I get that Nirrim and Raven's relationship is different to that of her and Aden's, but it just feels kind of weird that up until the proper reveal of who Raven is, Nirrim's insistent on thinking of her as the same one-dimensional mother figure who sometimes makes mistakes and hurts her. I'm not saying Nirrim has to be on board to condemn Raven the first time she does something bad, but it's just... weird, I guess.

I also think that the first like... fourth? Of the book is a little slow. It's got a lot to set up, so I'm not, like, mad that it's slow, but it does make it a bit hard to get into.

Also, there's certainly NO commentary going on about how the Half Kith's body parts are literally being used for the pleasure of the High Kith. Nope. No commentary at all. Not even about how Raven extorts families to get them families to move up in the world. Nada. Zip. Nothing. (This is sarcasm—sometimes, fantasy caste systems can be a bit... overstated, which to a certain degree could be true here, it also I think treats it with a bit more real parallels that it feels more verisimilitudinous to me.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Abandonment, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Police brutality, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Violence, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Rape, Murder, and Drug use

Minor: Misogyny, Child death, Death of parent, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

A note on the moderate content warning for rape:

The only reason I hesitate to put it under graphic is because, under all stops, the line between whether or not Aden rapes Nirrim is... concerningly thin, but still technically there. It's highly coercive and under most circumstances, would probably be considered rape—and this is not to downplay the real sexual trauma for whom coercive sex was the source of it—but Nirrim (until a certain moment) is technically never threatened verbally/coerced verbally. Is it highly coercive and at the very least dubious consent? Yes. But is it rape? I really can't tell, and given the purpose of trigger warnings as warnings that might *trigger* someone, I'm not 100% sure what to categorize it as.

Aside from that, the homophobia/lesbophobia is rarely actually acted out character-on-character; it's only as a facet of the fact that the lower Kiths are not permitted to have same-sex relationships. The actual brass tacks of characters being in same-sex relationships are not considered *morally* wrong.

erynpaige's review

adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Racism, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Drug use, Drug abuse, Xenophobia, War, Police brutality, Murder, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Death, Confinement, and Child death

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

wefeltforever's review

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Police brutality, and Sexual content

Minor: Confinement, Death of parent, and Homophobia