Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang

114 reviews

adventurous challenging emotional 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

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dark reflective sad 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

Incredibly impressive how flushed out this book is for a standalone high fantasy! 

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dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective 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

I really appreciate how this author writes humans and human responses. 
i absolutely flew through this book. 
and i really liked the bluntness of it. 

my main critizism is the limitations and faults in the worldbuilding.

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful inspiring reflective tense fast-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: Complicated

This was spectacular.
I knew it was a story about deep seated chauvinism and its impact on the society and even the greatest minds when those are raised with such beliefs. 
I knew that it was an introspection on privilege — Siona who is treated badly by her male colleagues is treating Tommen equally bad if not worse. How easy it is to forget that other people have it worse when you are focused on your own issues. It doesn’t make your issues less; it just puts things into perspective.
I knew that it was about choice — whether you are willing to question your ideals even if they actively benefit you. How eager people are to ease their burdens at the expense of other people. And how hard it might be to even comprehend the evil around you and inside of you.
But I still wasn’t ready for where the plot of blood over bright haven took me. I wasn’t expecting it to be that clear on the mission of getting to the point. I feel like I walked this road with Siona and cried with her and raged with her. I love how the story is not sparing us any suffering along the way. It had to be done like this, like a mirror that she created, that opens right in front of your face and shows you the truth how uncomfortable it really is. 
I have a feeling I will be thinking about this book for a long time 

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous dark fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I feel like the author decided to try and explore many different real social issues in a fantasy setting, but since it's a standalone and so many issues were involved, none were really explored well.
Cool magic system? Yes. Entertaining? Sure. 
a good commentary on the patriarchy/colonialism/industrialism/etc? Hell no

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i love when exposing corruption stories are done right 
this story and Babel are cut from the same cloth in terms of theme (exposing corruption, racism, xenophobia, etc) but I think where this story lacked a bit for me was the confrontation scenes and the info dumping. 

It felt good to read about going up against powerful people and putting them in their place but it also felt almost too cathartic? very much like a "i thought of a fantastic one-liner after the moment happened" type of scenes and although I really enjoyed it, I feel like for how much this books was grounded in reality, it should've shown more people trying to cut ziona off in her justice speeches cause these men that she was going up against would never have let her go on for as long as she did

other than that, God, what a fantastic story. perfect pacing, character arcs, believable politics, worldbuilding, action, and so much more. quite literally would've been giving this book a 5 star if not for the scenes that I mentioned above because this story wasn't just fiction but a mirror to what our world is currently turning into and it didn't really shy away from how twisted people in power's logic is

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dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was my first Dark Academia Fantasy and I was blown away with how profound and relevant it was to the current state of the world. Sciona was a character that is really unlikeable. She is arrogant and strong will and lacks empathy. She has used her brain and gift for magic to lift herself to the highest position a woman has gotten to. Her arrogance and the way she treated the Kwen was so annoying and really made me rage. She was treating them just like she hated being treated by the men around her. I'm glad once she knew the truth she did what she could to make it right, although she still make selfish and narrow sighted decisions. In the end, this is a book I will continue to think about. 

And this would make a great movie!

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful fast-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: Complicated

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