Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni

19 reviews

vcthompson's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-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

4.75

The first twist I *mostly* saw coming but that final twist? I was shook. I don’t believe I’ve ever read a third person limited book where  protagonist purposely hides information and leads the reader to believe a completely different narrative until the final reveal, so that was fun for me. I’ll be going into the second book picking apart the narrative to see if the protagonist is being fully truthful to us the readers, or if she’s leading me into another direction again until her next reveal.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Torture, Violence, and Blood

Minor: Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Death of parent

x_rosered's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Self harm

tabea1409's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

btheb's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

1.0

The book disappointed me a lot. The plot twists were predictable and the MC sadly wasn't enjoyable. Good premise bad execution.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Self harm, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, and Confinement

Minor: Death of parent

that_awkwardbook's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I haven't read anything similar before. And I'm in awe. Everything came through beautifully in the end. I can wait to read the next book. 

This book is about a  young girl, that has been in prison for the last 10 years. She is the prison healer, but keeps mostly to herself and stays out of trouble. 

A must read. In my opinion. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, and War

ashlyncherie's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad 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? No

4.75

THAT ENDING! Holy cow. I haven’t had a plot twist do me like that in a while. I freaking loved this!! It had everything I could have wanted. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual violence

Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, Rape, Self harm, Grief, and Sexual harassment

agiraffereads's review against another edition

dark inspiring 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? No

4.0

That end🤯

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Domestic abuse

mrobin14's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

2.0

The writing at times is very immature. Often thoughts would be scattered paragraphs away from where it started, or events would become repetitively told to the reader within the same chapters. Some events that transpired don’t make sense to have been included, it feels like they were cheap shots at making a “diverse” and “deep” cast. Pages were clearly taken from Lemony Snicketts writing in silly chapter set ups, but it just makes it feel like a poorly written YA novel. Feel as though the story idea is good, but needed a more stern publisher to steer it in the right direction. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, Sexual harassment, and War

grace_yin's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Fire/Fire injury

readabilitea's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

1.0

My tolerance for basic writing and plot predictability is pretty high, but I found it difficult to get through this one and in the end resulted to skimming just the speech.

The primary problem for me was how unnecessarily repetitive the writing was. I felt like I was being treated as stupid and as if my hand needed holding all the time, as though without the constant recapping, the stating the obvious, and the incessant reminders of "Don't let her die. We are coming." I would have forgot everything I had read up until that point.

I also felt this handholding and the telling rather showing aspect of the writing was a problem when it came to some of the sensitive issues handled in the book.

when Kiva reveals her self-harm to Jaren, and when he reveals his mother's addiction to Kiva, what followed was a lecture encompassing the beginning, middle, and end of a trauma storyline and it left me feeling really icky, as if the author wasn't actually engaging with the topic but using the trauma to add some history to her characters, justified by ending on a spelling out of what to do should you ever encounter these issues in real life.

This book is full of YA fantasy tropes and I see why people like it, after all that's exactly why I picked it up: I wanted an easy, action-packed read that would be difficult to put down. Ultimately though this backfired because I was left with so many questions that regularly took me out of the reading experience. If the prison is regularly overpopulated, why would you just accept kids coming in with the parents? The guards clearly don't mind being cruel so why would you not just forcefully separate children and their arrested parents before getting to the prison? Why are the trials impossible without magic and not just very very difficult?

How did Kiva just forget that a stomach bug was what caused her father's death?

If we are supposed to believe throughout Kiva is rigid about sticking to her healer code, why does she at one point worsen a guard's symptoms rather than just giving him a less effective remedy?

A slightly more minor point of annoyance was that the pacing was off. It starts off promisingly but slumps majorly in the middle section, which is even more baffling considering the whole appeal of a Trial format is the suspense and danger that propels a story forward. Instead of this, we spend pages upon pages conducting pointless scientific experiments?? And then it picks up at again towards the ending, finishing on a lot of drama and 'revelations' which felt contrived and fell flat.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed in this book and even the desire for plot resolution isn't enough to make me want to read the rest of the series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Self harm, and Sexual assault

Minor: Addiction and Drug abuse