elkru's review against another edition
yazthebookish's review against another edition
5.0
This is from an old review I found in my bookstagram but once I do a reread I’ll give this book the review it deserves!
Trigger warning: there is a r*pe scene that happens in chapter 6 from page 152 and ends on page 154. It's short but kind of graphic so I'm specifying the pages for those that want to skip it.
jojorenji's review against another edition
4.0
Spoiler
oh, yeah, this book has a horrific rape scene I'd heard about and that's why I had avoided it. I hit a point a while back where I decided I was just so so so done with reading and watching things with sexual violence as a plot point. So I tend to avoid stuff when I know it features rape. That said, while what happens to Sorcha is awful, I appreciated how the trauma of it was dealt with for the rest of the book. By the end she's healing but not healed (and specifically says that it's something that cannot be completely forgotten), and falling in love didn't make everything magically be okay. (But that said...I am so so so done with reading about rape.)Even with that and even though
Spoiler
A DOG DIESSpoiler
the romance is between a fifteen-year-old girl (twelve at the beginning of the book and sixteen by the end and referred to throughout as "a child" by so many characters) and a twenty-two-year-old manviolinplayer76's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
i_hype_romance's review against another edition
5.0
Do you love fairy-tale re-tellings with a twist of darkness? If you do, then this book is for you. The Wild Swans is one of my favorite fairytales, and Marillier's imaginative, evocative retelling will have you fiendishly devouring every page.
The kingdom of Sevenwaters is a bastion against the encroaching wilderness and the threat of Viking invasion. It is steeped in magic that emanates from the land around it. It is the safety net for a ragtag band of siblings. Sorcha is the only daughter of Sevenwaters, and her 6 brothers protect her from the dangers that surround them and from the despair of their father's neglect.
Sorcha's world is shattered when their father comes home with a new wife. Their new stepmother walks in nightmares, and wields their power to bewitch and bind her new family. Their father becomes nothing more than her minion, and Sorcha and her brothers must fend for themselves.
Their new life becomes too much to bear when their new stepmother enchants Sorcha's brothers. Sorcha is forced to make an impossible bargain with the Fair Folk in order to rescue them, and struggles to make her family whole again as she is cast from her home.
simply_sam's review against another edition
5.0
mehtahussain's review against another edition
2.0
I found Juliet Marillier's prose to be quite beautiful without ever sounding overly flowery; her writing meshed really well with the fairytale retelling aspect of the story. Also, I'd highly recommend the audiobook for this if you plan to read this story because the narrator's voice really fits what I imagine Sorcha's voice to sound like. I think the characters were fairly good, especially Sorcha's brothers.
However, despite any 'objective' positives to the story, and despite the fact that I thought the characters were pretty good, I just did not care enough about any of them—our main character included—to have enjoyed my time reading this. It was a nice retelling, but that was about it. Nothing in particular stood out to me as something interesting enough for me to give this more than two stars. The reason I was able to complete it was due to the fact that I consumed this in audiobook format, so listening to the story was a task that required barely any effort and was thus relatively easy to get through. Again, not a bad book by any means, but it was just not for me.