Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Weyward by Emilia Hart

174 reviews

mrsipson's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, and Pregnancy

mrsjoellebell's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Violence, Blood, Abortion, and Death of parent

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Car accident, and Abandonment

acourtofsaraflames's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

The audiobook is good and I recommend this format. I feel if I had tried reading instead of listening then I would have DNF’d. 

I was expecting more witchcraft than trauma reading this. Most reviews mention to read the content warnings and I agree. I tried to add as many as I could remember. At the height of the stories there’s abuse, mostly physical, and unwanted/unplanned pregnancy. I don’t want to spoil anything further so I’ll leave it at that but read the rest of the warnings in case something may be triggering to you. The beauty behind this story is the resilience of the three women and how their stories are connected. The women are alike and intertwined in more ways than one. We get their POV’s that take place over 400 years. 

A couple of my favorite quotes (spoiler free):

“Witch. The word slithers from the mouth like a serpent. Drips from the tongue as thick and black as tar. We never thought of ourselves as witches, my mother and I, for this was a word invented by men. A word that brings power to those who speak it, not those it describes.”

“There are enough men in the world already” 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Abortion

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, and Pregnancy

Minor: Infertility, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Murder, and War

inkdrunkalex's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-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

4.5

A beautiful story of a family of strong women dealing with the harshness of the world via the magic they possess. A difficult, hear wrenching, awe inspiring read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Rape, and Abortion

Moderate: Child abuse

story_collector's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Abortion, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

fire_phoenix's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Sexual harassment

madmantha's review

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Entrancing book and concept. 

Lost a star from me because the r*pe scene halfway through was unnecessarily detailed and descriptive.

I feel like in this day and age, we have many tools and resources that we don’t need scenes such as this one mentioned to be written on the page, or worse, recorded audibly. 

There’s hundreds of ways this scene could have unfolded to make the reader understand what happened without triggering readers and survivors with such graphic details. 

Other than the graphic scenes and descriptions, and the lack of trigger warnings, I rather enjoyed this book. It’s difficult to look back on it in a positive light because some of its scenes are so triggering, dark, and contrast the other themes of this novel greatly. 

If you do decide to read this book, I highly suggest reading up on the triggers before hand so you know what you’re getting yourself into. Beware of the halfway mark and Violet’s chapters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cancer, Racism, and War

oliviaalbion's review

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

I'm so torn between a rating of 4 or 5 for this book, but considering it's the first book in ages I've stayed up reading, it's probably a 5. It's taken me a day to process the story of these 3 Weyward women and how their individual stories and lives link to the wider story. The themes travel through time splendidly, and each chapter was so perfectly timed with the others, alternating between the 3 women nearly equally and showing them all at the age of 'becoming a Weyward woman' despite the difference at age. I think the power of women was sometimes not given enough credit and could have been portrayed better as the main theme of the book. 
I also wonder if more books like this should have a trigger warning as the chapters on domestic violence and rape were hard to read, and this wasn't hinted at in the blurb or anywhere else pre-reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse and Rape

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Incest, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Car accident, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment

jasisreading's review

medium-paced

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

2.0

The pacing of this novel was off to me. It felt like either needed to be longer to let all 3 POVs breathe evenly or drop one of the POVs. As it is, I have enjoyed, other novels that explored similar themes, more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual violence, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse and Domestic abuse

bookishpip's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Rape, and Abortion