Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

32 reviews

tibbarasden's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

4.5

I debated about giving this a five-star, but in the end, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the story/characters I couldn't quite give it that. The atmosphere of this book was spot on. I liked the little connections of the three main characters throughout the storyline. I loved the fire and ice/winter and summer theme throughout. The only thing I didn't like was the number of POVs (6) and the way the author transitioned through the POVs. It wasn't always clear initially whose POV it was, which would take me out of the story a little. Also, I didn't feel the tree's backstory was explained, which left me a little dissatisfied with its whole role. But everything else about the story was wonderful, and I loved how it played out in the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, and Animal death

ru_bunny's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Bullying, Death of parent, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Death, Toxic relationship, Miscarriage, Child abuse, and Child death

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

atthelibrarywithmegan's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

Tbh, this took me a month to finish. I think it was a combo of the fact that I had a massive book hangover and this is a pretty slow paced book. I do also feel like it would have been easier to read a physical copy rather than an ebook. That being said, I really loved it. This was my introduction to Naomi Novik and I really enjoyed her writing style; so much so I bought the physical book for Indie Book Day! This world is filled with so much detail, that I know I missed things. It’s told from 6 different POVs. Our main character is a Jewish young woman, Miryem, who works hard to bring her family out of poverty. She ends up making some unlikely alliances to help combat the evils around her. There’s found family and a little bit of enemies to lovers, but no spice. The imagery and details of the books, as well as NEEDING to know if Miryem, Wanda, and Irina succeed really helped pull me through this story. I cannot wait to read another one of her books!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Antisemitism, Blood, and Child death

elizabeth_lepore's review against another edition

adventurous 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Antisemitism, Domestic abuse, and Child abuse

Moderate: Death of parent and Alcoholism

Minor: War and Rape

raquelrose's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Death, Death of parent, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Alcohol, Kidnapping, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal death, Rape, Child death, and Sexism

seadeepy's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death of parent, Physical abuse, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Sexual assault

Minor: War and Rape

bettysbookishworld's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcoholism

Minor: Miscarriage and Grief

emkplatts's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

I enjoyed the world that was created in this book. I liked the characters even though they weren't super likable lol, but I liked how they seemed dynamic and real. I thought the portrayal of women and their roles in society in a variety of different lives was realistic, nuanced, and interesting. I did feel like the book was confusing at times and because it is based off of a folktale, it was hard to wrap my brain around certain plot points (I'm not super well versed in the source material). I am excited to read more from this author because I enjoyed how she wrote the characters and I think with a different plot, I would really love her books! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual violence

readwithde's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, and Misogyny

Moderate: Miscarriage, Antisemitism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Violence, Blood, Classism, Alcohol, Child abuse, Alcoholism, and War

Minor: Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Gore, and Confinement

maeverose's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.0

TL;DR: I’m sad because I really liked some aspects of this and it had the potential to be a favorite, but it needed to be shorter, have less povs, and have the romance not be toxic, and then make it a little more of a focus. I also don’t care for the gratuitous violence…

The toxic romances. First I should say that this isn’t a romance book. I went into this with the expectations of it being a fantasy romance and it’s definitely not. That’s my bad, I thought I’d heard people talk about it as if it was. There’s only a tiny tiny bit of romance at the very end, but the way the two male love interests treat their eventual partners is incredibly toxic. I made some lists to illustrate the point (spoilers, obviously & tw for rape and sa):

The Staryk king threatened to kill Miryem if she didn’t complete his tasks, threatened to kill her family, forced her to marry him, was physically aggressive with her, nearly raped her, trapped her in her room with no food or water for a day, used her to lengthen winter in turn harming people from her world, generally treated her like shit, it’s also made clear that his people killed and raped innocent people in the sunlit world for centuries, and he had no problem with it. Mirnatius scared Irina as a child by leaving her dead squirrels, clearly had no issues with the demon trying to kill her, touched her sexually without her consent and might’ve raped her if she hadn’t stopped him, generally treated her like shit

And it’s so sad because both of those relationships could have been really fun if they hadn’t been horrible to each other. I love a good enemies to lovers but this is not how you do it.

Gratuitous violence. Mostly from Wendy and Stepon’s povs, where they had to bring up at every opportunity that their father abused them. It felt like the author was just throwing it in there to keep the book feeling dark and gritty but there was no real purpose to it. We already know from the first few chapters that their father is a despicable human being, it didn’t need to be mentioned repeatedly every single time it switched to one of their povs.

The multiple povs. I only cared about Miryem’s and Irina’s a little bit towards the second half of the book. However I wouldn’t say the others were unnecessary (well, Magreta’s maybe) or couldn’t be interesting to other readers. I felt that it was usually pretty clear who’s pov it was right away, but the book does switch povs multiple times in every chapter, so it could get annoying.

Bad autism rep? I wanted to talk about one of the perspectives in particular: Wanda’s younger brother Stepon. His narrative voice is especially different from the others and I can’t tell if it’s just supposed to be that he’s young, abused and had a very isolated upbringing, or if he’s autistic coded. He has sensory issues with noise too, which could be a trauma response from his abuse, I’m not sure, but it felt like an attempt at a very stereotypical representation of autism, and if it was I don’t like that. It’s a very narrow minded interpretation of autism, not to mention it was just so tedious to read.

It’s overwritten. It definitely could’ve (should’ve, imo) been at least 100 pages shorter. Maybe its just because I wasn’t enjoying it that much but it felt like a drag to get through. I was bored for a lot of it.

The writing. Her style just doesn’t work for me. I liked the winter descriptions, and the folktale style of it, but I found certain sentences to be worded awkwardly to where I’d have to read them multiple times to get what she meant. It was the same with Uprooted for me. Like she’s trying to make it sound pretty but it’s just awkward to read. Could just be me. I did find some sentences that were actually grammatically incorrect though…

Homophobic?? This one was easy to miss, but the only - very minor side character - that’s gay has a crush on his own cousin. I feel like I don’t need to explain how that’s problematic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Gore, Physical abuse, Vomit, Child abuse, and Misogyny

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Antisemitism, Blood, Death of parent, Alcoholism, Body horror, Rape, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Classism, Incest, and Miscarriage

Graphic: Eye trauma Moderate: mentioned child rape