Reviews with content warning for Infertility - Weyward

Reviews tagging 'Infertility'

remokelly's review

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dark emotional mysterious fast-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? No

3.5

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clairebartholomew549's review

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dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense 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

4.0

I really loved this book. It's dark and moody and vaguely mysterious, and the scene-setting is impeccable. I've always been intrigued by the Salem witch trials, and this retelling felt fresh and new and interesting. At its core, this is a story about men trying to control women and women breaking free of patriarchal expectations and realities. I rooted for Kate, Violet, and Altha, and I enjoyed each of their perspectives and didn't find myself itching to get back to one perspective (which I find rare in books with multiple timelines). I also deeply loved the depictions of nature and animals and attunement with the world.

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missjaward's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

SPOILERS AHEAD three women's stories from different age spans.

In 1619 Althea is on trial for potential witchcraft, accused of putting a spell on her friend's husband, John, to kill him after finding out he was abusing his wife (Althea's friend Grace who was being beaten up because she could not provide him with an heir), Althea is actually involved in his death by proxy when 'her' crow causes his cows to stampede and kill him. Althea is found not-guilty in trial and very bizarrely at the end invites a local boy into her house to have sex with her one time so she can get pregnant and have a daughter. That was a bit weird.

Violet 1942 - doesn't know much about her own dead mother and lives a lonely life in a grand house. Her cousin comes to visit and rapes her (let's not forget not only was she a child but this is quite incestuous). When she becomes pregnant she is cast out of the family home into her mothers old poor cottage where she finds her mother old 'recipe/concoction' books and induces her own miscarriage. Its never really explained why her father chose the mother in the first place as she was obviously from such poor background and never seemed to care about her. Why would a man with all the riches and wealth choose someone like her (who he himself calls strange) without actually being truly in love with her? She lives the rest of her life without children but has visions of her brothers kid suffering in the future (she sees visions of a car accident and a horrible man), so she chooses to leave all of her possessions to her when she dies rather than try and make contact again. hmm. the cousin also basically gets away with the rape, although it is alluded that Violet puts a curse on the family home so it is infested with bugs until her death

Modern day Kate - finds the courage to leave her abusive relationship when she realises she is pregnant. She flees in the night to the cottage left to her and tries to start anew. While I totally get fleeing the abusive relationship - there is no real thought to what is going to happen after the baby comes. Unless its reported in the right ways, the father is likely to find out and demand visitation because he is so controlling anyway. She also keeps blaming herself for her dad's death after he was hit by a car when she was distracted by a crow (the crow in question being her aunts - so really did she ultimately kill her brother?!)

The endings of each story were pretty predicable. The only one I really didn't like was Altheas where it was so important to her to have a child that she just randomly bedded a guy from the village once so she could be impregnated. I quite liked the end of Kates story where she was able to almost use her witchy powers to have the birds and spiders attack Simon making him leave. I think I would have preferred more of the witchy elements rather than just the abusive men storylines but heyho.

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bmatth3's review

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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kitfkat's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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? No

4.5

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victoriastarkid's review

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challenging emotional 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

Content Warnings

acourtofsaraflames's review against another edition

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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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