Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

64 reviews

foxowl2005's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

morethanmylupus's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

This was a beautiful book but it was so hard to read. It's important to bear witness to these stories and  there were so many beautiful elements of what a mother will do for her children. Not an easy book and as with all books that center the narratives of slaves, please check TW if you have content you are sensitive to. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, and Slavery

butle2em's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad 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

This book is a graphic depiction for what life was like for enslaved people. It took me a long time to read through it because I needed time to process the torture depicted between the pages. While this book is uncomfortable and horrifying, I think it is important that white people read responsibly written slave narratives (eg researched, historically factual, written by Black authors) in order to consider the world we inherited and our responsibility in changing that world for the better. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

nrogers_1030's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Trafficking, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

4.0

 Yellow Wife is the story of Pheby, an enslaved women who was promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday by her father, the plantation owner. Instead she is sold off by his wife and ends up at the notorious Devil’s Half-Acre, part jail, part slave-market. The owner takes her as his mistress and she bears him five children and assists him with some of his business’s operations.

The book did a really good job of highlighting the difficult position Pheby was in, the fine line she had to walk. The jailer treated her better than many enslaved people both in his compound and generally. Yet, she was far from free and if she displeased him or refused to do as he wished he had no compunction threatening her to enforce obedience, frequently using her children as bargaining chips.

Things come to a head when her first love, the father of her oldest son, is captured in the North and sent to the Devil’s Half-Acre. There is real tension in the last few pages as we see Pheby’s plans for their freedom being put into action. The ending is both heart-rending, heart-warming and realistic.

The Author’s Note at the end outlines the inspiration for the story and helps tease out the facts from the fiction. The setting and many of the characters are based on or inspired by real places and real people. A satisfying read overall, although the broad strokes of the plot, characters and themes will be familiar to anyone who has read American historical fiction from this era.
 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Slavery, and Violence

kibbles15's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective 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? It's complicated

4.0

This is a hard book to read. It goes into great detail about what the female slave (Main character) has to deal with throughout her life.  If you are not prepared to get immersed into the horrors of slavery, I would suggest not reading this book.  If you can handle it, this book is eye opening and should be, in my opinion, be read at least once by every adult.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Excrement, and Vomit

Moderate: Child death, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Medical content, Trafficking, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Intense detail about the horrors of slavery and the experiences of a female slave.

suzyvee's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Violence

bandysbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

 As an avid reader of historical fiction, I'd heard of this book several times, but only just recently got around to reading it. I want to say that I'm glad to have finally read it, except that I don't know if glad is the right expression for this book. Yellow Wife is the story of a biracial woman who is sold off to the owner of an infamous slave prison. He is taken with her beauty and whit and essentially forces her to marry him. What follows is the story of her life.

This book is a masterwork in historical fiction. It is inspired by a true story, but is a fictionalized account. Johnson does such a phenomenal job of making her characters real and creating a story that will haunt readers well after they put the book down. Some of that is due to the horrific scenes she creates to instill in the reader the unflinching truth about the inhumanity of slavery and some of that is due to the main character, Pheby, who makes impossible choice after impossible choice.

One thing in particular that takes a lot of skill in writing about brutality like slavery is finding the balance between creating horrific scenes that show the experiences of the victims and not making it so brutal that your readers stop reading. While this story definitely has some extraordinarily difficult scenes and Johnson is very detailed in her writing, I did feel that the brutal scenes she wrote about had a specific purpose both within the story and in the larger picture of remembering the atrocity that was slavery. It was brutal, but not gratuitous.

And I found myself so relentlessly rooting for Pheby. Every time you wonder how she could ever possibly keep going, she finds ways to endure. She is such a tough, strong, and eventually selfless character who struggles with the morality of what she has to do daily to survive. In the bleakest parts of this book, I kept reading because I just had to know what happened to Pheby in the end.

All in all, this is a well-written historical fiction about some of the unknown bits of slavery. It's about how women specifically were victimized and the ways that they overcame and continued to survive. I would definitely recommend reading the trigger warnings on this book before reading, but I unequivocally would recommend reading this too.

Trigger Warnings: Rape, Sexual Assault, Forced Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Kidnapping, Torture, Whipping, Mutilation, Starvation, Sexual Slavery, Sex Trafficking, Severe Injury, Illness, Death, Infanticide, Slavery, Public Humiliation

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

haley49's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-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

5.0

This was such a poignant account of slavery in the 1850’s South and the horrible complexities of the trauma of slavery, no matter your position in the house. The comparison between enslaved people based on their duties and the interpersonal relationships that suffered. I had such visceral reactions to everything that happened and I felt for every single character (besides the enslavers) that it couldn’t be less than 5 stars. The only disappointment was the realization that this wasn’t a inspirational book where things instantly improved after slavery. I so wanted them too but that isn’t how it happened I guess. 

I would recommend this story to anyone looking for a first hand fictional account of a complex part of history. However, check trigger warnings and make sure you are mentally well enough for the heavy themes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Gore, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Trafficking, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Alcoholism, Infidelity, Sexual content, Violence, Vomit, and Medical trauma

Minor: Ableism, Religious bigotry, Abortion, and War

maggiemagrath's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

It was well written but at no point was I swept away by the words. The ending was sudden, and I didn't find it necessarily fulfilling. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual violence, and Violence