Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Jade City by Fonda Lee

13 reviews

pri_lakshmi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Violence, Blood, Grief, and War

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Dementia, Medical trauma, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Bullying, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, and Colonisation

lejones1785's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

1.25

I had a tough time with this book, and I was really looking forward to reading it. It seemed like a lot of space in the story is just filler. Jade this, jade that, jade is worth ruining a city for. The characters are so smart, the characters have inner turmoil, on and on without much real substance. The main scenes in the book are over in a matter of moments, so there wasn't really any payoff for the filler material. It felt like this book was just for world and character building, so maybe the second book has more story?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and War

Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Death, Drug use, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, and War

widowrites's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

I really enjoyed this book. The family draws you in despite their flaws. The plot is tense and keeps you on the edge of your seat. The only reason it didn’t get five stars is that there are chunks of story that felt unnecessary. It made the book feel long when otherwise it might not have.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying and Blood

Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Dementia

olympia98's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

4.0

Ottimo inizio.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

vnderseelie's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

2.5

The overall setting of Jade City was amazing and the structures of the clans and Kekons society was intriguing. However, most if them were introduced too late in the story for my opinion and that made it difficult to understand them from time to time. As a reader you are treated as if you already know everything about the terms, phrases, gods, etc. that are mentioned in the book and I feel like some points have not been addressed at all and you are forced to accept them as they are.

The characters are really interesting and actually carry a lot of the story, since their flaws and decisions let the events progress and escalate further, which makes them feel alive and well merged with the world Fonda Lee built. Nevertheless, a lot of the actions that the characters took did not make a lot of sense in specific situations or were needlessly cruel, even given the topics the book deals with. Especially the grandfather gave the impression that he just appeared to talk the others down. Additionally, I really disagreed with some scenes and the behavior in them, which made it hard for me to continue the book sometimes.

Some scenes felt a bit too long or they were repeated in almost the same way too often, which made them repetitive to read and it seemed to just add to the page count of the book, without providing a real impact on anything.

All in all the idea of Jade City was really interesting to me, but I think the actual translation into the story was lacking in my opinion.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, and War

lonelylooper's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Mental illness

Minor: Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexual assault, and Suicide

rnbhargava's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

This is the first part of a fantasy tinged saga about a crime family. All the violence and tropes of mafia stories are present here. Certain things are also essentially superpowers. That said, it’s also very gritty with hard hitting violence. There’s mental illness, there’s drug addiction, there’s deteriorating health of the elderly old leader. There’s suggestions that one character is a sex offender and pervert. There’s essentially ableism surrounding certain figures born to Jade user families but can’t use Jade abilities, ableism suggestions. There’s vilification and racism toward certain outside nations albeit because they’re also colonizing forces. Also, certain characters’ relationships with foreign nationals are heavily talked about with racist suggestion. The connection between drug addiction and potential suicide is a major theme in the story because it’s framed within the context of jade ability performance enhancement drug usage. There’s a lot of heavy themes to suggest while reading through this mafia family novel.

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

3.0

I wanted to like this book way more than I did and I just didn't. 
I wish I had read a review that said "this Godfather-esqe story", because then I would have been prepared for how politically based boring it was. This was 612 pages of politics, I read it all and the question still remains, "why should I care?". I don't know which side to root for because I just simply didn't care. 

I really enjoyed the magic system and the martial arts/hand to hand combat scenes that were described. 

I'm giving this 3 stars out of 5, I didn't really like it very much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

listette's review against another edition

dark emotional tense 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

A very strong opening to a trilogy! 

I loved how the characters were flawed and made mistakes, horrible ones at times, but you’re still rooting for them and have your heart skipping beat for their success. 

Really happy that I don’t need to wait to read the next parts! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Drug use, Violence, Grief, and War

Minor: Bullying, Gun violence, Sexism, Sexual violence, and Dementia

sarah984's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? Yes

5.0

"She felt, strangely, that it all made sense in a perfect and terrible way. It only confirmed in her mind that the will of the gods was a conspiracy of many things; people laid the tracks of their fate yet were helpless at the same time. They’d all played their part in this—them and their enemies."

This book really just blew me away. It's a family saga, and a gangster novel, and a story about a formerly isolated nation forced to confront the wider world and figure out how to live alongside it. The world (especially the advantages and drawbacks of jade magic and how that is integrated) is fascinating, and all of the characters feel like real people. This book is long but not a single word feels wasted - everything that comes up even once matters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Drug abuse, Gore, Xenophobia, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol

Minor: Ableism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Mass/school shootings, War, and Classism