Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

50 reviews

bookish_bry's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

I liked this book at the start and was ready for some intrigue and internal conflict as our main character dealt with being a complete fish out of water, but we honestly didn't see much of that and what we did fell flat. To be fair to it, I think it may have been advertised to me as something it wasn't meant to be. There were some parts I liked, but the length and the parts that I didn't like made it a hard read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

The love interest does at one point physically beat the main character mostly off screen. This is forgiven and rationalized away.

hannahrose_fgc's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Torture, Murder, and War

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide, Blood, Kidnapping, Car accident, Abortion, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

samiredden's review against another edition

emotional hopeful tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Mental illness, Pregnancy, and War

Minor: Child abuse

jackieswitzer96's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, and Medical content

Minor: Child abuse

chloescozycorner's review against another edition

3.0

1. The narrator of this MAKES the story worth it. She’s incredibly talented
2. This book is VERY graphic at times and very traumatizing as well so be warned. I was audibly gasping and very uncomfortable many times.
3. There is toooooo much pretty imagery and description which is why this is 32ish hours long. Definitely could have been shorter. There’s also new plot line after new plot line introduced which I feel that it crammed a lot into one book.
4.  The ending just is kinda like “yay we love each other”. I was looking at the minutes left like this is it?? Such a mild ending to a GIANT book. 
Overall it’s not bad. It’s not amazing in my opinion, but I did enjoy Claire, Jaime, and many of the other side characters. I also really enjoyed the setting and historical pieces. But the graphic parts, some of the crazy plot lines, and the ending brought it down for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse

kmac14's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Infertility, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Medical content, and Alcohol

Minor: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Abortion, Death of parent, and War

laserorchid's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Suicide

themclaughs's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

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

1.0

I think this book was… problematic, at best. 

There’s great actual writing here, but there are way, way too many negatives with the plot to really offset the style of writing. 

I did some cursory google searches and apparently the nickname Claire is given was used as a slur, which I find just… absolutely mind boggling. 

There are multiple scenes of what I can only see as marital rape, which is horrible normally, but is made even worse because of the attempts at spinning it as love. 

There’s also a huge dialogue to be had about beating your children/spouses in a book about going back in time, but it is completely inconceivable to me that someone from “the future” would forgive being beaten, and then being told how hot she was while being beaten, in about 24 hours and then just sleeping with the attacker again. 

All of this, before we get to the male rape scenes and how utterly disgusting one of the characters is. 

Maybe in a couple days my opinion of this story will change but it just… I was so disappointed that Claire forgives horrible things (by today’s standards, or WW2’s) and seems to have zero real issues whatsoever acclimating to the past. Yikes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, and Torture

Moderate: Child abuse

bookish_village's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, and Torture

breegoux's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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

3.5

Outlander is an interesting read and I'm not quite sure how to classify it. Historical romance isn't quite right as it spends a good deal of its time setting up a deeper political plotline, but historical fiction doesn't fit either because (at least to me) it ventures a little too far into the drama aspects of someone is always captured/in trouble/under threat to quite fit there. So probably closer to dramatic historical romance? And there is something to be said for "well what does the genre really matter?" which is fair, but I found myself constantly bouncing around in the narrative confused as to what exactly the book was trying to do or where we were going - it just wasn't cohesive to me. Some plotlines had me hooked and unable to put the book down and others had me thinking that Gabaldon had really lost the plot somewhere. All that being said, it's easy to see why Outlander is such a hit and a bestseller - it's hard to put down. It keeps you on the edge of each page wondering what's going to happen next, the characters are loveable if not rough around the edges, and the landscape of 1744 Scotland is magical. Where it failed for me is the repetitive "oh no they're captured again" narrative and over the top drama that seeped into a lot of the subplots

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual harassment, and War

Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, and Alcohol