Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

84 reviews

mgondwe's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Murder, Alcohol, and War

Minor: Infertility, Grief, and Pregnancy

sammiebauer's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

this story has many povs and deals with many sides of the same conflict. this leads to a very fleshed out story that is driven by the heart and love of the three main characters, young women who are each navigating at different levels of class. speaking of class and money, those are huge themes in this novel, and i think the theme of class in particular is super well written. every character has their own personal life story and experience, and being able to read from so many different perspectives gave this story an all-encompassing feeling that draws you in completely. my critique of this story is that while the characters are all very well written and interesting, the problem lies in the way that the story ends with what is essentially wish-fulfillment. it caused me to take the story much less seriously than i had previously, unfortunately. however, i would still highly recommend this story if you enjoy fairy tales.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Antisemitism, and Death of parent

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Sexual assault

aharrison_33's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful medium-paced

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

5.0

Absolutely loved this book! Strong character development all around with rich characters from beginning to end. Will be reading more of her books 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Child death and Death of parent

astrangewind's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

Spinning Silver must be savored. It cannot be read in one sitting, as much as I would have liked to; some moments are so intense, so raw, that I had to set the book down to digest.

The characters come alive on the page: Miryem, the moneylender who pays her debts; Wanda, the strong helper who devotes herself to those she loves; Irina, the practical-minded leader who would do anything for her people. Even the more minor characters who we see a lot of later

- mainly Stepon and Magreta -

are so rich and diverse that I can't help but love them.

The villains, too - the Staryk king and even Mirnatius are likable by the end.

Each character is a victim of their circumstances and choices, and they evolve throughout the book in fascinating and sometimes unexpected ways, and I found myself genuinely rooting for them as though they were real. And they could be real.

Naomi Novik is a master of tone. Despite the number of characters who have first-person POV chapters, it is never unclear whose perspective it is. It's clever and subtle in an area where many authors falter. The writing itself, even, is the perfect level of descriptive; the world came alive around me.

The story of the fae and the moneylender lends itself well to problems of deals made, and fulfilling those deals in lateral ways, which I very much enjoy. I've heard from others (and I agree with it) that Spinning Silver has excellent reread value for this reason.

Naomi Novik's romance was a pleasure to read. It isn't overtly sexual, or even overtly romantic

; the romance is a function of the characters and their problems, not the other way around. It's far more natural than something like Twilight, for example

.

The plot evolves, twisting and turning throughout the book, ageing and maturing. It's never too much, never any surprise plot twists, but the payoff of things set up on every page.

I don't know what else to say about this book. It's absolutely phenomenal. A true joy to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Miscarriage, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Murder

bunnypunk's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

5.0

This book could have ended at multiple points and been a good book, but it just kept going and going until it was a GREAT book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Religious bigotry, and Classism

Minor: Child death, Rape, and Torture

macliffe's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? No

4.75

I very much enjoyed the writing of this book, how it was so creative on both a macro and a micro scale. I always wanted to pick it up again. My only nitpicks were the constant switching of POVs, and how horrible most of the men were.  But there was a lot more to those characters that you see by the end, so that ended up being better than I initially expected. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

Moderate: Confinement, Racism, Sexual assault, Torture, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, and War

Minor: Sexual content and Violence

justina_kl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This is now one of my favourite books of all time, and most certainly one of the best folklore fantasy books out there. It has a semi-historical setting in a world where real mixes with fantastical. The changes in point-of-view give the reader insight into the thoughts of characters from different backgrounds and who have different goals. The story is women-driven, and the characters are sympathetic without being flawless/perfect which adds to their realism. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Antisemitism

Minor: Alcoholism, Death, Miscarriage, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

carlithian's review against another edition

dark inspiring mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Misogyny, Physical abuse, Blood, Antisemitism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Torture, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, and War

petra_eller's review against another edition

dark sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry

Minor: War

sydapel's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Compared to how much I loved Uprooted, this was a bit of a let down for me personally. I enjoyed how it was an exploration of the darker twisted side of fairytales, especially through a female led perspective. However, the pacing of this felt glacially slow and some of the 'favor' spells of the fae creatures were so lost on me that I barely followed parts of the plot. I did like all the main characters in the story and how they exerted their power in very different ways, but it felt like Novik was trying to fit in too much into this story that the character work got buried. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Child abuse

Moderate: Chronic illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Blood, Death of parent, and Murder