Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Lui che annegò il mondo

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Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Lui che annegò il mondo by Shelley Parker-Chan

145 reviews

lilnormbean's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

and_opossum's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

emrosch's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

It more than just surpassed all of my expectations. All this book did was make me miserable.

It's absolutely brilliant. This entire duology is like nothing I've ever read before. The prose, the characters, the vividness of everything... It's simply phenomenal.

Here's to hoping Shelley Parker-Chan releases more books in the future!!

Content Warnings

mynameisinigomontoya's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

jht5791's review against another edition

4.0

dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

nikenacs's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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: Yes

Content Warnings

ghoulgalpal's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Content Warnings

erinreadsbooks's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

Wow. A surprising but also seemingly fateful end to this epic duology. There were several moment in this book that made me audibly gasp in horror at the brutality and gruesomeness of the characters’ actions, but nothing felt out of place or inserted for shock value. The events build on each other until the tension feels almost too much and you are wondering if what you felt was fated to happen this whole time might not actually occur. There were some lulls that felt a bit drawn out but overall I was just as rapt and invested as I was in the first book. It didn’t feel like a second book but rather a natural second part to the first, and the ending was satisfying.

Although the story ending with Zhu on the throne feels inevitable and does not come as a surprise, the path taken and the characters you get to know along the way are richly developed and interesting, which keeps the reading experience interesting and worthwhile.

It didn’t seem to matter that I never truly grasped the movement of the armies or the complete geography—the focus on the characters and their motivations and interactions was engaging on its own and the characters’ intertwined arcs were logical, satisfying, and moving.

Read if you like sweeping political drama and brutal historical fantasy.

Content Warnings

yourbookishbff's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This sequel to She Who Became the Sun (and conclusion to the duology ) is even darker than its predecessor - you've been warned, reader. This is, again, a nuanced exploration of gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, and experiences of dysphoria and internalized transphobia and homophobia - and also war.

Our character foils from book one, Zhu and General Ouyang, orbit each other even more closely in this installment, and I was fascinated to see the ways in which they aided and betrayed one another. I was surprised by how much time we spend with Wang Baoxiang, and didn't anticipate how central his storyline would become, but I honestly loved how the threads came together and how his story intersects with Zhu and General Ouyang. And never fear, because my favorite side character from book one, Ma, becomes pivotal in the final act, and I was so delighted to see how she influences the course of the narrative.

Though this book was exceedingly dark with significant on-page trauma (including rape, sexual violence, miscarriage and abortion, in addition to murder and war), these scenes felt intentional more than gratuitous, as Parker-Chan examines the intersections of revenge, sex, pain and violence in compelling and devastating ways.

I appreciated how Parker-Chan brings into this morally grey, violent hell scape earnest discussions of living authentically. Our characters each have a different vision of what it might mean to rule, and Zhu and Ma offer insight into what it might look like to create new ways of being yourself in a world that wasn't built for you. They dream of a world existing outside the binaries that have restricted them, and have to continually decide which sacrifices are worthy of this cause. The symbolic contrasting lights and shadows of the mandate, and the ability to see ghosts, layer into this vision of remaking new life and new light from death and darkness.

I felt the story was surprisingly well-paced (given its length), and there were significant landmark scenes throughout that will haunt me for some time (sailing through ghosts?! IYKYK).

Because of how graphically violent and dark this duology is, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to all fantasy readers, but I would absolutely recommend for those who love historical fantasy, historical retellings, speculative fiction, gender+bent history, and queer retellings with deeply (deeply) morally gray characters.

Content Warnings

shibh's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A bittersweet end to the duology. These books look at gender and the human experience of it in a way that has left me feeling exposed and crying. In a good way though.

Content Warnings

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