Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

12 reviews

cumminsn's review

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.0

It is honestly sort of difficult to put into words my exact feelings on this book. Parts of it I liked quite a bit, while others had me physically rolling my eyes. The magic is very fun, and the lore of witches and how they connect to the earth and to each other I found compelling and interesting. But, once the conflict of the story started to come to a head, I found myself enjoying the book less and less. The villains almost become… cartoonish, in a way? It felt like the author was really trying to push home how terrible the antagonist is by just repeatedly having her state her transphobic viewpoints to the point where it was very irritating and tiresome even for me, a cisgender woman. 

While there is very positive transgender, and LGBT in general, representation here, there is also rampant transphobia that I could see being very triggering to some. Also, the overuse of swearing and pop culture references took away from my immersion as well. For a book that has different characters that it switches perspectives between, I sometimes found myself having a hard time remembering who was who, with no very large differences in tone from one character to the next. Other than the antagonist, of course. The fact that she was evil was about the most obvious thing in the whole book. 

I guess what disappointed me is that there wasn’t quite enough Fantasy to balance out the in-your-face politics that were constantly surfacing. I was more interested in the lore of the world, but the story seemed to stumble over itself to try and include as much political-correctness as possible that some of the characters didn’t even feel like genuine characters and more like just stereotypes being included for the sake of it, which was sad to read. Some of the language used, particularly internet-type wording and references, will likely not age well either. 

I forced myself to finish this one. I was invested enough to want to do it, but I don’t know that I’ll be reaching for the sequel right away, if it all. In the end, I felt underwhelmed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Blood, Car accident, Transphobia, Cursing, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Sexism, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Alcohol and Body horror

Minor: Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Gaslighting, Medical content, and Outing

blacksphinx's review against another edition

tense medium-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? Yes

2.0

On one hand, I feel like the main message of this book is important and I'm glad its been so successful. But I bounced off of the extremely causal prose hard, and it was difficult to read so much misogyny directed at women by other women (please stop calling each other cunts holy shit!) 

(I am also very tired of books that go "covid happened but we used magic to make it go away" ugh! And blaming the anti-vax movement on warlocks is so distasteful.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Death of parent, Hate crime, Transphobia, Kidnapping, Outing, Grief, and Misogyny

Moderate: Car accident, Fatphobia, Alcohol, Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Bullying, Cursing, Medical content, Classism, Lesbophobia, Racism, Confinement, Dysphoria, Violence, and Gaslighting

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Murder, War, Ableism, Abortion, and Emotional abuse

TW: transphobic, misogynistic, and ableist slurs. Internalized misogyny. Mention of drowning.

lorriss's review

emotional mysterious

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Transphobia, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Racism, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Car accident, Confinement, Deadnaming, Misogyny, Murder, Outing, Violence, and War

Moderate: Medical content, Miscarriage, Gaslighting, Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Vomit, Alcohol, Classism, Colonisation, and Infidelity

Minor: Child death, Excrement, Lesbophobia, Pandemic/Epidemic, Rape, Slavery, Abortion, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

taleofabibliophile's review

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Child death, Gaslighting, Transphobia, Alcohol, Homophobia, Blood, Bullying, Death of parent, Cursing, War, Misogyny, Racism, Kidnapping, Deadnaming, Grief, Death, Confinement, Suicide, Animal death, Violence, Murder, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Medical content, Fatphobia, Colonisation, Toxic friendship, Infidelity, Fire/Fire injury, Car accident, and Outing

Minor: Gore, Emotional abuse, and Vomit

mynx's review

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia

Moderate: Toxic friendship and Violence

Minor: Cursing, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, War, and Grief

annelihghh's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Sexual content, and Transphobia

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Kidnapping, Medical content, Torture, Toxic friendship, Infidelity, Car accident, Confinement, Grief, Outing, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, War, Bullying, Gore, Alcohol, Animal death, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Minor: Vomit

shannon_readsbooks's review

challenging medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

I’m marking this as read because I DNF’d it at about 85%. I know the author is trans and that she can speak to her and the experience of being trans in general, however she is also white. There is well written representation of a Black witch as one of the POVs, but I DNF’d because it made me very uncomfortable that she had one of the

transphobic main characters describe Trans Aboriginal Australian witches as “balding gorillas in floral dresses”

and that just felt really yucky to me. I know the character is supposed to be The Bad Guy but a white author using that wording felt wrong potentially bordering on racist. Disappointed, I was very excited to read a book by a trans author and with such good rep.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, Transphobia, Toxic friendship, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Outing, Medical content, and Homophobia

clairew97's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Confinement, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Abandonment, Abortion, Blood, Addiction, Alcohol, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Violence, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Murder, Outing, Sexism, Sexual content, Transphobia, Car accident, Medical content, Toxic friendship, Animal death, Bullying, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and War

anapthine's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? No

4.75

Thank you Net Galley and HarperCollins Audio for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First off, Nicola Coughlan was incredible at narrating this book. I was in awe of how well she portrayed the many characters just by voice. The accents were amazing, the way she made me feel when listening to this audiobook, how she made you sympathise with each character - just everything was perfect. 

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is a low fantasy novel set in a small Yorkshire town in the UK. Niamh comes across a child who is misunderstood and shields them from the dangers. This book is about friendship, trust, love and understanding. The diversity and LGBTQIA+ representation in this novel is beautiful, along with the many different stories told. The trans rep is compelling and gorgeous. I loved this novel so much. Also a complex villain? That makes it even better. 

I would recommend this to everyone, I think there is a bit of everything. Do read the content warnings before starting as there are some major mentions of transphobia, racism, violence, (and white supremacists). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Bullying, Alcohol, Blood, Car accident, Cursing, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Medical content, Toxic friendship, Transphobia, Violence, Kidnapping, Racism, and War

Moderate: Abandonment

Minor: Infidelity and Vomit

jadehusdanhicks's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? No

4.25

A great witchy and queer book.  Incorporating not only political aspects but also bringing a trans witch into the picture which I’d never seen in a book before as it’s almost only ever exclusively gendered witches and warlocks.  

Dealing with coming out, queer identity and also transphobia and homophobia this book is very well written by an own voices author.  

It also openly discussed race issues in parliament especially in the uk and I can only say this is accurate to real life - I love how it questioned what people haven’t been willing to change in the past.  In the name of making their world more intersectional.   With a smashing ending I can’t wait for the next book and shocked by who the villain turned out to be.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Abandonment, Cursing, Xenophobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Dysphoria, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Medical content, Outing, Racism, Sexism, Toxic friendship, and Transphobia