Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

41 reviews

bean_7088's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad 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

4.0

Whoops what a doozy! Murderous queen backstory makes her worse!

Like, part of it is sad, like spoiled kids growing up sheltered in the nasty circles they do makes for horrible people and children.. but she had chances to be a better person. 

I still loved the writing 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Rape, Death, Gaslighting, and Toxic relationship

Basically the evil queen has been abused and then she abuses, manipulates, forces her husband into sleeping with her.

livreads2much's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.75

Love is a conquest. Love is a war. Here's what I think about love. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, and Sexual assault

Minor: Infertility, Death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Gaslighting, and Grief

cherryren's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Rape, Sexual harassment, Death, and Sexual assault

val_theburrowofstories's review against another edition

dark emotional fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Rape, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Pregnancy

Minor: Infidelity, Infertility, and Death of parent

marenm's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

2.25

it was interesting to see more about levanas background, but this book was very disturbing. while her actions fit her character and the evilness, it’s very reflective of right and wrong and the messiness of politics into a novella. the only reason it’s rated so low for me is that i couldn’t stand listening to levanas monologue and how terrible of a person she was. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Grief, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Bullying, Child death, Torture, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Classism, Gun violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Murder, Pregnancy, Stalking, and Violence

csmall73's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Torture, Rape, Murder, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, Body horror, Sexual harassment, Mental illness, Classism, Toxic friendship, Sexism, Xenophobia, Racism, Slavery, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Child death, Body shaming, and Adult/minor relationship

psliz's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

i hate elara with a burning passion and reading her backstory (which was really interesting and heartbreaking) makes me hate her more 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Adult/minor relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Rape, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Alcohol

cranereader's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Toxic relationship, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Body shaming, Physical abuse, and Sexual assault

grac0n's review against another edition

dark sad fast-paced

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

3.0

Trigger warning for this book: sexual assault themes. The power of manipulation, both in people’s minds and in their view of other people’s physique is a big part of this book. Levana, main character, is a broken child (15/16) who uses her talent for manipulation to coerce a guard to “love her.” Her most serious attempt occurred when she was 16 and the guard was 26? I skipped a lot of conversations where Levana is actively manipulating the guard because it was just close enough to r@PE to make the reader uncomfy. Plus also she’s a literal child trying to make an adult man desire her. It’s rough. She successfully coerces him into marriage. Their sex habits are alluded to, I think, but I was skimming still, so I do not know if she was still that young when they did it. This story is helpful to know why Levana is the way she is and how she got there, but it does a great job making sure you’re not empathetic at the end, which is important. If you decide to skip, it will not harm your reading journey for the Lunar Chronicles. </spoilers>

As a standalone novel, this book is meh. But taking into account the larger story at play, and that this is a backstory to a great villain in the Lunar Chronicles, it was not an unenjoyable read. Prior knowledge of the world is necessary before reading this book.

It’s a sad, heartbreaking story. The formation of a villain from a young princess who just wanted to be beautiful and loved. Same girl, but her methods are so wrong, and they’re what make her a ruthless villain. Marissa Meyer does a great job telling this brief story. It illicits strong reactions: sadness, disgust, horror, embarrassment, heartbreak.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Adult/minor relationship, and Death

Moderate: Sexual assault, Rape, Murder, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

nannahnannah's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Oof. I love The Lunar Chronicles, and Cinder is one of my favorite books, but this one ... just wasn't a good read (for me). I get this is a novel(la?) about a villain's origin story, but reading about how this villain raped someone from basically the book's start to end isn't something I can handle. At all. And it seems to have a drastically different audience than The Lunar Chronicles that it seems like it doesn't fit well.

Fairest is the origin story of Queen Levana, the villain of The Lunar Chronicles. It's more like a novella, and at the end it's revealed that it was originally a short story. Because of the very uncomfortable content, I think it would work better as a short story than a short novel. It would be so much easier to digest content like this in a shorter work, and I still think the molding of Levana's character could still get across.

It was very, very difficult to read this book, and I'm way beyond the target audience's age. Sure, I could just be a wimp with PTSD (which I am), but damn, the drawn out rape and manipulation of one of the characters by Levana at times was so graphic it was just ... too much. Way too much.

It's at times like these I'm shocked that books don't contain some kind of content warnings near the front. I mean, even movies and video games do. Why not books? People like me can get seriously triggered and have unnecessary anxiety attacks when we could instead be warned and avoid them. I don't know ...

Anyway, it's a solid novella, but the content made it extremely unenjoyable for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, and Rape