Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

You're Invited by Amanda Jayatissa

8 reviews

emilycheslock's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Mental illness, Death of parent, Car accident, and Self harm

Minor: Colonisation and Pregnancy

michaelion's review against another edition

dark emotional funny fast-paced

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

4.0

If "Now you ain't hear this from me..." was a book. If a telenovela was set in Sri Lanka. I'm sure they have a word for it. As always, rich people are evil. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Stalking, Self harm, Abandonment, Mental illness, Classism, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Murder, Violence, Infidelity, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Outing, Misogyny, Addiction, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Colonisation, Death, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Sexual content and Pedophilia

lowkeymarie's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

This was a difficult one to rate. The last 100 or so pages were genuinely really great...but the preceding 300+ pages were a slog. The main character was not poorly written, but it also wasn't an entertaining perspective to read from. Her PoV is broken up by interviews and we do get the PoV of another character eventually, but I think the book would have really benefitted from more perspectives than just Amaya's.

Something else that really irritated me is that allll throughout the damn book, a certain event that happened five years previously is constantly brought up, in a way that keeps it a secret from the reader. Which, if it had been brought up just a couple times, would have been intriguing. But it's referenced so frequently and so cryptically that it just became obnoxious.

Once we get to the third act, things finally start coming together and paying off in a big way, but it was just too little, too late for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Murder, and Gun violence

Moderate: Colonisation, Blood, Stalking, and Sexual content

Minor: Homophobia

kcelena's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Cancer, Classism, Confinement, Kidnapping, Murder, Pedophilia, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, and Cancer

dhutton1997's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense fast-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

4.75

For the first half of this book, I hated every single character especially Amaya. However, by the middle of it, I was hooked. So good and everything is wrapped up by the end and man will it blow your mind! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Chronic illness, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic friendship, Violence, Self harm, Stalking, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, and Pregnancy

delphine_'s review against another edition

funny mysterious relaxing tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This is a strong 4 stars for me, a fun read with layers I didn’t expect and that just kept on coming. I was enraptured with the plot and really liked the writing. I was also lucky to be listening to the audiobook, and the narrators were incredible, I can’t give them enough praise.

The book goes back and forth between Amaya’s point of view of events over a few days, and the accounts of other characters who give their own perspective. It makes it really interesting and is a splendid set up for some really well engineered reveals and progression points.

And then there’s a third point of view that shifted my entire perspective on things and added so much context and was placed really smartly in the book. Absolutely delightful.

The morals of everybody involved are delightfully twisted and the book left me feeling like well- that was even more messed up than I thought. But in a good way. The layers of morality.

It was also a really fun projection into both Sri Lanka and the high society of that place. It really felt like I could place myself there, the world was really well brought to life.

My only gripe with the book- but it’s a pretty big gripe- is the laying it on thick about one of the characters. I think it could have been more subtle and the result of it was just a lot. I would have been sold just as effectively with less. 

This is about Spencer: I was already down with hating him at the gold digging, the blackmail, and then EXTRA down at the abuse. Adding a layer of pedophilia, though it provided additional motive for Amaya, I thought was unneeded and just made him into a caricature of a villain. “Just add one more despicable thing just to be 100% sure”. Abhorrent, but just to sell us more this character hatred, which I was already sold to and now just felt queasy.

This is a bit sad as the book otherwise does a great job of depicting tense relationships, two-faced individuals, and

a truly splendid job at describing how abuse is insidious and can destroy how you used to be. I loved that the security agent simply believed Amaya about the abuse, or at least let her talk. It’s important.

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Finally another gripe would be the little faux pas of implying

an addict’s son would be an addict too. It’s also an extra way to make us hate this character, I suppose, but not a great way. The fact that a character was delivering drugs to him was a good way to start hinting at Spencer’s facade being just that, but I wished it didn’t turn into “he was an addict the whole time, he’s a bad person who even does cocaine.” Again doing a little too much with Spencer, but with added insensitivity imo.

All in all I liked this book a great deal and couldn’t stop listening, I am delighted to have spent time with this, and picked up another book by this author. Read the trigger warnings REALLY carefully, because they’re no joke. But if you’re good to go, then I could not recommend it enough.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Self harm, Classism, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Murder, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Abandonment, Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Alcohol, Car accident, Pedophilia, Death of parent, and Physical abuse

Minor: Alcoholism, Rape, Colonisation, Adult/minor relationship, Pregnancy, and Blood

cassielaj's review

mysterious tense

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

2.75

I liked this until I didn’t… that’s the best way to explain it. It was definitely twisty and I wanted to know what happened, but there was no real sense of urgency or high-stakes situation, partly because I didn’t like the characters. I also thought that the book was reallyyyy front heavy, with a lot of time dedicated to the rising action and very little time spent on explaining the “big twists”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Violence, Toxic friendship, and Mental illness

Moderate: Self harm, Addiction, Murder, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Colonisation, and Sexual violence

maregred's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Cancer, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity