Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

The Four Profound Weaves by R.B. Lemberg

7 reviews

prosenheim's review against another edition

dark hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

Moderate: Murder, Transphobia, Dysphoria, Deadnaming, Misogyny, Confinement, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Self harm

indeedithappens's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death of parent, Transphobia, Blood, Deadnaming, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Abandonment, Death, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Murder, Misogyny, Police brutality, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Addiction, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Animal death, Child abuse, Dysphoria, and Body horror

bisexualwentworth's review

• 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

Lovely little high fantasy story about two trans elders (one newly out and from a culture that is not accepting, one who came out decades ago and never struggled with her identity) finding their directions in life in a rich setting steeped in Jewish folklore. The book definitely drops you into the middle of the world without explaining anything about it, so if you're not into fantasy novels where you are deeply confused for the whole first chunk, this may not be for you. There's also quite a bit of Generic Middle Eastern Aesthetic going on here, but overall the worldbuilding and characterization and storytelling all really worked.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Deadnaming, Death, Transphobia, and Misogyny

maidinnah's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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? No

3.75

The Four Profound Weaves drops you into a world that normalizes queerness, polyamory, and genderfluidity amongst desert sands and nebulous magic systems, making an absolutely enchanting, intricate, and spellbinding tale. By having two elderly, transgender protagonists at the forefront, adventuring past their prime and asking questions about identity, transformation, and death, Lemberg expresses hope for different ways of being and inspires the courage to pursue them. 

Despite how much passion and love this book was written with, the vague, lyrical prose did make it challenging to follow along initially. Additionally, the alternating perspectives seemed unnecessary, given how similarly both protagonists sounded, which added to the confusion. The Birdverse world is worth feeling lost for a bit though. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Torture, and Transphobia

Moderate: Sexism, Violence, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Minor: Child death

jjjreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Outing, Physical abuse, Sexism, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Abandonment, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Body horror, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture

reviewsandreadathons's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

This is a book that just plops you into the world with very little explanation. I did read a novelette set in the Birdverse first and that seemed to acquaint me a little more. Beautiful writing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Transphobia, Torture, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

micheala's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

3.25

This is an interesting take on a coming of age novel in that both the main characters are in their mid-60s and are only now finally figuring out how to be who they are. 

Seeing the nameless man's journey was more impactful for me then Uiziya's as I never really connected to her motivation. 

R.B. Lemberg has previously published poetry in this universe and I feel that that can clearly be felt in the prose style. It was more flowery and metaphorical than I typically enjoy. 

The world is really interesting, but it's also definitely on the weird side of fantasy. As much as I really appreciated the desert setting and clearly non-Western based cultures, the magic system was hard for me to wrap my head around. I'm not sure if I would have had an easier time if I had read the short stories set in this universe before hand, or this is just a system that my brain is going to struggle to get anyways. 

If you're interested in queer stories by queer authors, you don't mind your fantasy being on the weird end of the scale, and/or you enjoy novellas, I would recommend this. 

On that note, however, there are two big trigger warnings that I think are important to know before heading into this, particularly if you are not cis:

The nameless man gets dead-named and misgendered on several occasions by different people in the latter half of the book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming and Death

Moderate: Blood, Misogyny, Murder, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Transphobia