Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

30 reviews

maeverose's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

Things I liked:
The story was fun. The writing is super pretty and atmospheric. So many quotes i wanted to highlight. It was very easy for me to imagine what was being described, and i loved that. I like Lazlo a lot as a character. I like anything to do with dreams so I loved that that was a big part of the story.

Things I didn’t like:
Sarai’s chapters/the citadel chapters felt super repetitive, at least in the beginning. I was often pretty bored during those chapters. As much as I love the writing, it is overwritten at times. I think this book should’ve been about 100 pages shorter, the pacing is very slow for most of it. Also the reveals were pretty predictable but I guess that’s not super surprising for YA. It’s also very instalove. Very mild spoilers for this next part (it doesn’t have to do with the main romance, just side characters): I didn’t like the non consensual kiss played off as funny because it was a girl doing it to a guy. If the roles were reversed I don’t think it would’ve gone down the same… It’s still sexual assault no matter who’s doing it. And then when it happens again later it was still very dubious consent at first. Idk it made me feel gross.

I hate everything about that ending. I hate minya so much. Please tell me she dies a painful death in the next book. And that sparrow is able to bring sarai back to her body with her powers and then sarai and lazlo get to live happily ever after. If that doesn’t happen I’m suing. /j

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Rape, Slavery, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Confinement, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

There was frequent mention of female fertility and ‘becoming a woman’ once you bleed. Personally it made me uncomfortable, as an afab non binary person with zero desire to ever get pregnant.

cookiecat73's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Misogyny and Pregnancy

maddiebusick's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Rape, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Confinement, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

hiddeninfantasy's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

this book doesnt totally click w/ me. idk if it's the plot--or lack thereof--or what, but there's something missing. so it's rly a testament to laini's vivid, seemingly boundless imagination; impeccable and wholly original worldbuilding; her ability to make the simple seem magical and extraordinary; thought-provoking and emotional exploration of hatred, love, survival, living, horrors and trauma of war; her writing that is pure poetry; and--though it's too sweet and toe-curling for my taste--the tenderness and longing and hope infused between sarai and lazlo, that strange the dreamer nevertheless gets 4 stars. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Confinement, Sexual content, Violence, Murder, and War

Minor: Child death, Sexual assault, Slavery, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

jhaneveauguste's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective tense slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Rape, Slavery, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, and Gaslighting

albireotales's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

Loved Lazlo. Suffered for Sarai.
Hated Minya. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Torture, Kidnapping, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

bookcaptivated's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious sad medium-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Genocide, Sexual content, Xenophobia, and Death of parent

Minor: Rape, Suicidal thoughts, and Kidnapping

angelareads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, and Grief

Moderate: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Torture

Minor: Sexual content

oddduck's review against another edition

mysterious reflective slow-paced

4.0

This was a reread for me, and I did not remember anything that had happened (because I read this 5 years ago, when it first came out), but as I was reading this time, I was very certain that many of my thoughts were the same ones I had the first time I read this.

For starters, this is a very beautiful book. I love the cover, and the writing itself is also very lovely. I was especially drawn to the way she kept slipping absolutely knockout lines about the nature of humanity in amongst the description and exposition. The first time I read this and got to the part where Sarai tells Lazlo, "Good people do all the things bad people do. It's just that when they do them, they call it justice." I had to stop reading, copy the quote down, and just sit for a minute. And Laini Taylor drops lines like that everywhere in this book! It was quite delightful for me.

I also remembered how much I loved the complexity of this story. The relationship between the citizens of Weep and the surviving godspawn was especially fascinating to me because both sides have very valid feelings about what happened. The mesarthim very much terrorized and traumatized Weep for two centuries, so it's hard to feel bad about Eril-Fane murdering them. It's really the murder of the baby godspawn that is the sticking point. Because I understand why he did it, but I still can't help but wonder how those children might have grown up if they'd been sent somewhere else, where they could be raised with love (because that was never going to happen in Weep and after the trauma those people went through, raising the godspawn would only be inflicting further trauma on them). So I understand Eril-Fane's motivation and don't think he was really wrong in his actions, but we also get Sarai and Minya's views, and their feelings about this situation also make sense and are justified. This whole situation is very complicated and messy and it's one where there is no solution that will make everyone happy, which is very difficult to deal with, but it's handled very adeptly here.

Despite all the things I enjoyed in about this book, I did have a hard time getting into it and staying in it. Part of this, I think, is that I don't really care for full on fantasy worlds, which this is. It's nothing against this book or fantasy in general, it's just hard for me personally to read, and I acknowledge that and read accordingly. Beyond that though, this book was just very slow to me, especially at the beginning. The scene where Thyon Nero requisitions Lazlo's books about Weep spanned far too many chapters, for example, because there was a lot of backstory and exposition that got in the way. It was all interesting, and I know why it was included, but because the writing style itself is very slow, all of these extra scenes in the middle of the the action made parts of this really drag for me. This technique also made it difficult to remember what was happening in the present, even with the narrative clues, purely because there was so much other information I had to absorb. And this continued throughout the book. The last 50 or so pages were probably my favorite, because so much happened, and it all happened in a much faster pace. It was exciting and I wish the rest of the book had been more like that, because the story itself is very interesting.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Blood, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and War