Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - The Pillars of the Earth

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Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

66 reviews

zynkar's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

Content Warnings

rosietomyn's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

linda_wolf's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional informative inspiring sad 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: Yes

Content Warnings

va_hobbit's review against another edition

1.0

medium-paced

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

How many rape scenes can you fit in one book? Flat characters (unless you’re talking about breasts, which the author does A LOT), repetitive plot and prose, literally reminding us what we read about earlier. But with an overstuffed 900+ pages, maybe he thought we would need the reminders? There are far, far better historical novels out there. The title may be the best part of the book.

Content Warnings

drsquared's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Content Warnings

heartfelthullabaloo's review against another edition

4.0

challenging tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I honestly am struggling with what to rate this because on one hand I want to give it five stars for an epic tale, but on the other I want to give it two for all the rape. Oh my gosh! I’ve never experienced so much rape before in my whole life! I bet if you took every single movie I’ve watched, every book I’ve read, every person whose told me they were raped and put them together it still wouldn’t add up to all the rape that happened in this book. It was crazy! And descriptive! Like super descriptive! Also, the author is clearly a tits guy. He looooves to talk about big tits, and nipples and how heavy they are, and soft and the way they hang and sway and move and feel. There was a lot of sexual stuff going on for a book about monks. Maybe the author was fascinated enough about the way cathedrals were built to write a book, but he’s equally fascinated with top heavy women.

William was the WORST bad guy! I absolutely loathed him and I cannot believe how much he got away with, it was OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!! So, kudos to the author for writing someone to root against.

The politics of the Catholic Church! The things that they sanctioned is sickening and infuriating. Trying to play a giant chess game to rise to power and using God as a tool to justify your actions is awful. I can’t imagine why anyone is still catholic to this day. Sure, they’re not all like that and they did some good and helped some people but man, the corruption is hard to look past.

The actual story itself, was great. Will I read the next one? Sure will because we’re about to go on a plague kick and I’ve heard that’s coming up next.

Content Warnings

jessiekind_'s review against another edition

3.5

Content Warnings

basbleu_dans_labiblioteque's review against another edition

1.0

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

im a huge fan of historical fiction, especially medieval historical fiction. I was really excited for this book, because it was in a setting I find fascinating and was clearly accurate and well-researched, but this guy did not pull it off. Some of the book was boring, and there was quite a bit that was downright painful to read.

Also, that bearbaiting scene absolutely did not need to take around 5 pages!

I couldn’t care about any of the characters, and the book was so. Repetitive.

The “good guys”(Aliena, Jack, Phillip, etc.) would do something good, Waleran Bigod would make a plan, Hamleigh would show up, murder some people and rape somebody, and we’d be back to the beginning.

For 975 pages. All in all, I ended up reading it out of obligation: I felt like I was already into it so I might as well finish.

Content Warnings