Reviews with content warning for Child death - The Wolf in the Whale

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Wolf in the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky

17 reviews

a_beautiful_soup's review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense 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

Content Warnings

jayinbee's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional 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? It's complicated

4.75

I really adore this series and this book was no exception, however this was the first I had listened to as opposed to reading and while the narrator did a fine job, it made it harder for me to focus on. I had a lot of ideas as to where the mystery was going and I was kind of close but didn't quite guess it which was fun. I liked that we got a bit of resolution in the time travel, will she stay or try to go, area. I am not sure if Ms. McElwain plans on continuing the series because it was a tidy ending but I hope she does just because I enjoy the stories and plots so much that she is putting forth in this series.

Content Warnings

maecave15's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

jackierabbit's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional tense 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

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I CRIED FOR THIRTY MINUTES WHILE READING.

Content Warnings

alliethegator's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional sad slow-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

3.5

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. I have a tendency to dislike movies that are longer than they need to be, and I think that translates to books as well. Otherwise, the writing felt somewhat formal, which may be a side-effect of me reading mostly fantasy. I will say, the blending of Intuit and Norse mythology was soooo interesting, I want more of it. The Gods, both familiar and unfamiliar to me were so interesting.

Inuit. Norse. Both are people of dwarfs and giants and ravens and wolves.

We follow Omat, whose body is that of a woman, and whose soul is a man. I don't think throughout the whole of the book, anyone refers to them by any singular pronoun, so I will continue to use they. Omat's journey is a bleak one, full of heartbreak. We follow them as they grow up from a young boy. In this tribe, women do not hunt and do not fight and do not lead. Unfairly, Omat is expected to, after reaching their menstrual cycle, adapt from how they were raised as a man to the life of a woman. To marry and raise children. Omat fights against this expectation.

Maybe I don't need to return to my body at all. Why continue life as a man trapped in a girl's body when I could just as easily fly into the heavens or run with the wolves?

Aside from their struggles against gender roles, they are also born as an angakkuq, a shaman, to their people. They can enter a spirit sleep and speak with the Gods or transform into animal spirits. They are expected to lead, but due to certain circumstances, they instead are thought to bring bad luck. Their tribe is starving.

From there things get extremely bleak as Omat travels across the ice and eventually runs into the Norsemen. Check the tw for this book before reading. I loved reading about Omat and their overcoming of gender roles, Omat and their wolfdogs, of Omat and the Gods, Omat and Brandr, but unfortunately between the formal language and length of the book I found myself losing interest and having to take constant breaks between reading. Honestly, it deserves a chance though if you are willing to give it.

I didn't mind the prospect of leaving this life for a while. I was very tired.

Content Warnings

barefootamy's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

Content Warnings

hellsploss's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark sad slow-paced

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

3.0

The beginning is extremely slow and a lot of it felt like you could shorten the length a bit. The really interesting parts happen at the end and despite being the main character I didn't really feel a connection to Omat or sad at any death in the book. The way Norse and Inuit mythology was woven together felt really thought out and I enjoyed it immensely. Overall I enjoyed this book despite it's flaws, it's 5 in the morning and this is the best review I can write right now, goodnight.

Content Warnings

valbowski83's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative 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

5.0

Content Warnings

maeverose's review against another edition

Go to review page

TL;DR: The cis white author of this book should’ve stayed in her lane. This book is full of gratuitous violence against the trans main character, women and Inuit people. I found it offensive and triggering and DNF’d after 12 chapters.

I should start by saying that I am not Inuit but I am non binary. I also want to include content warnings for rape, transphobia, incest and misogyny for this review. This review contains spoilers.

The transphobia

A lot of reviews from people who read the whole book seem to suggest that Omat actually ‘becomes a woman’ later in the story, but based on the beginning he is clearly transmasc/ a trans man, so if the author did decide to throw all that out the window and say ‘actually they’re a woman now’, that’s already transphobic. It just would be such an odd choice for an ally of the trans community to have this character go through an explicitly trans experience only to say ‘no actually they were wrong’, and make them a woman after all… I was extremely uncomfortable with the way Omat’s gender identity was handled in this book. So obviously written by someone who doesn’t understand non-cis gender identities. Just going off what I read, Omat was born afab but from the beginning identifies as and is raised as a boy. Omat’s family says they will accept him as a boy until he gets a period. When another group of Inuit join them, the leader of this group rips Omat’s shirt, revealing his breasts. He then proceeds to talk to Omat as if he’s a woman and threatens to rape him (and from what I read in other people’s reviews, he does rape him later). None of Omat’s tribe defend or protect him in this scene. Kiasik, Omat’s cousin, suddenly starts treating him as a woman as well after this. Omat is understandably very upset and (context for this next part: he’s a shaman) goes into a trance to fly to the moon and speak to the Moon Man for help. The Moon Man then essentially rapes Omat, causing him to get his period, effectively ‘detransitioning’ him in the process…….. Knowing a cis woman wrote that, I feel sick. If a trans person wrote that to process trauma thats one thing, but a cis person has absolutely no right to write something like that. That’s an extremely sensitive topic and one the author has no experience with. It was not handled with care and should not have been included. The author also constantly conflates biological sex with gender, saying Omat has a ‘woman’s body’, referring to his body as ‘woman’s flesh’ (which is just gross anyway). I initially brushed it off because I thought maybe she was trying to write from the mindset of the time period. But lots of native cultures around the world (including Inuit) acknowledge and celebrate non binary genders, so that doesn’t make sense. To me it felt like the author used this book to vent her transphobia in a way that cis people will think she’s being progressive by including a trans main character. I wish I could unread it.

The incest

This one I was not prepared for. In this book the Inuit have rules they have to follow in order to not be cursed by the gods. One of these is to never have sex with a blood relative. Omat, when he notices the father of one woman in their tribe clearly planning on sleeping with her, tells the story of the sun and moon (the story involved the moon raping the sun - his sister - over and over) in order to subtly remind the father to back off. But then later on in the book, Omat and his cousin Kiasik clearly have feelings for each other, Kiasik getting erections and even relieving himself around Omat. And Omat being flustered by his erection in one scene. There was literally no reason to include either of those things in the book. It was uncomfortable to read, served no purpose in the story, and made zero sense given the rules they established.

Misogyny

From very early on in this book it’s clear that this Inuit tribe has very misogynistic gender roles within their culture. It’s often reiterated throughout the book that the men, even including Omat, see women as weak and inferior, their main role being to eventually become mothers. A quick google search will tell you that Inuit women are given equal power and respect as men. Granted, I don’t know if the same was true when this book takes place, but you can tell this was written from a euro-centric viewpoint.

Gratuitous violence

It’s such a big pet peeve of mine when authors who write adult fantasy (especially historical) feel the need to add ridiculous amounts of unnecessary violence (nearly always against women and marginalized peoples) for the sake of making it ‘historically accurate’ and ‘gritty’. I read 160 pages of this 500+ page book and was already triggered and exhausted by the violence, and from what I’ve read in other people’s reviews I hadn’t even gotten to the worst of it. I don’t find it enjoyable to read such extreme unnecessary violence. I read fiction for escapism. For fun. This isn’t fun. It’s not trying to say anything, either. It’s not having a discussion on misogyny, transphobia or racism. It’s just trauma porn. It’s just to set the time period. Call me sensitive but these are serious topics that people have actual trauma from. I don’t feel it was handled with care.

Content Warnings

_annika__'s review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

More...