Reviews tagging 'Cultural appropriation'

Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee

5 reviews

azaliz's review against another edition

The story is too cliche, and i really didn't understand some of the choices that the protagonist makes.

How they're not shown to question the work they're doing for the ministry

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, and War

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Alcohol, and Colonisation

Minor: Gore, Sexual content, Vomit, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, and Injury/Injury detail

elylzlz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny inspiring 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

4.25

Non-binary main character with normalized queer culture 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, and War

woolerys's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

3.5

Writing -  4/5

Plot -  3/5

Characters -  3/5

World-building -  4/5

Personal tastes -  4/5

TOTAL: 3.6

The main character and the dragon (it’s not a spoiler to say there’s a dragon, right? it’s on the cover) are the highlights. I found the MC very relatable—wanting to ignore the political tensions they are enmeshed in, not wanting to truly hurt anybody, just wanting to paint! 

I wish there had been as much deeply-felt emotional angst around the love interest as there was for the sibling relationship. Not that I minded the sibling relationship getting higher priority, it just felt like for the romantic relationship, a lot of emotion was implied rather than described.

The world-building was also cool, with a focus on visual arts and their underlying philosophies. The magic felt a bit runaway as the story went on but the concept was original and intriguing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cultural appropriation, and Colonisation

Moderate: War

Minor: Torture

citymouse's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Violence, Blood, Vomit, Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content

aardwyrm's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

The magic system is stellar, the worldbuilding is lovely (and brutal), and you get to make a dragon friend, which improves any book a thousandfold. Lots of political intrigue, a paucity of right choices, and horrible consequences, avoids giving pat answers to hard questions. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail