Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

149 reviews

cryosphinx's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

Kind of slumpy compared to the first book. The first one follows three characters and this one cuts that down to two (it does have a third, briefly) and it slows down the plot but makes up with it with character growth and world building. A lot of things get answered about the world and how the magic works and all the Guardians, Stone Eaters and orogenes exist. Since the plot doesn't move quite as much as Book 1, there is a lot more dialogue and I found it quite slow in the first half so be prepared for that.

Hoa definitely becomes the most interesting character aside from the main two. I do love the found family, depictions of grief and trauma and Jemisin's prose is still so beautifully written, there were times where I just read a passage over and over to fully observe how lovely it was written. You also get more informed of Essun's time in with her family, though it's told from the perspective of Nassun.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Violence, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Bullying, Sexual content, and Cannibalism

mahitdzmare's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Cannibalism

aehmyers's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring tense slow-paced

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

5.0

This book definitely put NKJ in the top five of my favorite authors. It is a stunning second book, and I thought it couldn’t get any better than Stone Sky.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Violence, Murder, and Classism

emilymia's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Violence, Murder, and War

Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, and Cannibalism

abitbetterbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective tense 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

Excellent second instalment to this series! Didn’t have me quite as captured as The Fifth Season (I think having the 3 intersecting storylines made it feel faster, in comparison to 2 main stories in TOG) but I loved all of the developments and complexities of these characters. Absolutely masterful work. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Grief, Murder, and War

Minor: Cannibalism

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

The Obelisk Gate is the sequel to N. K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season" and it definitely does not suffer from "bad sequel syndrome "as one goodreads user put it. This was an amazing follow up, with so much wonderful and vast world building and character growth.

I loved this and I see why it also won the Hugo award (and many other awards).
I was drawn in to the story and my interest or excitement never faltered. This book reminds me of how enamored I was while reading Octavia E. Butler's Patternist series, I see some elements of OEB's stories come through in The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate. Mainly a dystopian setting, found family, and found community to help survive the recent disasters.

I read this in 5 days only because I was buddy reading with my boyfriend and we had to read around his schedule. If I had read this on my own I probably would have finished it within a day or two. It was that good.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent

mandkips's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, and Violence

Moderate: Death, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Cannibalism

le_mur's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Violence, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, and Cannibalism

tldrjune's review against another edition

dark reflective fast-paced

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

3.5

The first book in this series was a breathtaking piece of world building, drawn up by some clunky writing and a decently skillful asynchronous chapter structure. Character building was always the weakest part of the author's repertoire and yikes it's come out big time in Book 2. No one is likable, no one has relatable or likable relationships, and literally everything is ROCKS GEOLOGY MYTH/MAGIC driving everything all the time. Which... that's fine? It's cool. But I feel pretty let down. Here's hoping book 3 is better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Child abuse

Moderate: Cannibalism

farleighelse's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-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

expands on stone eaters. more on what happens during a season and how it affects environment.

a guardian lost, losing his original drive. starts to care for oregones. Fucked up moon.

child abuse and trauma. multiple POVs. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Cursing, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, and Cannibalism

Minor: Sexual content and Torture