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emath98's review
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Medical content, Colonisation, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Deadnaming, Slavery, and Vomit
Minor: Racial slurs and Suicidal thoughts
stormagedon's review
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Confinement, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail
infinite_harness9030's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Colonisation, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Classism
Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic
marioncromb's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
I wanted to love this as much as i loved LOTE, which has similar alternate-history vibes but I just didn't. i personally found the obtuse academic style prose referencing Derrida etc in the sort of language that is only understood by philosophers to be alienating and a bit of a slog to get through. I understand that it makes sense for the realistic characterisation of Voth, and is realistic for the metapremise of the novel, but still, I didn't really enjoy the interjections/the personal story within the footnotes. I know that you don't have to like the characters to like or appreciate a work of art but it was an issue for me here. I often love the tangents of footnotes (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell my loveeeee) and i did appreciate the ways in which the stories mirrored each other. However I was half-expecting from this mirroring
Another personal issue i had with the book was its idea of queerness was often too easily found though queer sex, queer bodies, more than through all ways of being/loving/not-loving that are othered by society. As an ace person i just didn't relate to the horniness in the book that was often posited as some universally relatable and transformative queer experience. This is not to say that it shouldn't have been so horny, it is an important part of the characterisation and indeed of the queerness of the book.
I enjoyed more the stories within the story: enjoyed learning about the Fen-Tigers and enjoyed the imagined paradise society of the Maroons. The little details of Jack's woodworking/technical knowledge.
Graphic: Sexual content and Medical content
Moderate: Death, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Confinement, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism
opossumble's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Confinement, Gore, Racism, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Drug use, Slavery, Excrement, Vomit, Murder, Alcohol, Colonisation, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
readingtrees's review
- 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
5.0
Moderate: Confinement, Transphobia, Alcohol, Colonisation, Dysphoria, and War
Minor: Slavery, Trafficking, and Lesbophobia
julianship's review
- 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
That being said, the narrative of Jack Sheppard is well-done; Rosenberg nails a particular sort of 18th-century cadence (possibly anachronistic; I don't really care.) Jack's narration is as slippery as the thief himself, both poetic and crude. The end of the book is spectacular, and Bess's discussion of the Fens is lovely.
Even in print, though, I found myself wishing the footnotes weren't there at all - as much as I enjoy a metanarrative, I think there's enough metanarrative present in the "18th century" portion itself, which touches on environmental destruction, the carceral state, the new calcification of racial categories, and transgender lives and loves. I don't think the book actually needed our modern day Dr. Voth in order to make the narrative speak to the present; it does that just fine on its own without the frame narrative, and I ended up getting distracted trying to track the details of his near-future academic dystopia.
So, overall: great book, loved Jack and Bess, (shockingly for me) could have done without the frame!
Graphic: Racism, Slavery, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, and Medical content
jameslyons's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Ambitious and almost overwhelming at times. It took a lot of faith in the author for me to get through the wilder parts that didn't make sense until everything Did. Thank god it all pulled together in the end. I remain annoyed at the heavy academic bent, but that's a personal pet peeve, and scholarly sycophants will likely adore that aspect. Everyone else, my advice is to just ignore and skim at will. The rest of the story contains So Much aside from that.
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Genocide, Slavery, and Vomit
Content found within, which storygraph doesn't have specific tags for yet: graphic descriptions of public executions (hangings), murder, corpse multination, a VERY graphic surgical scene (which could be skipped by the reader), and medical abuse. That would normally be enough for me to give this just 1* or not finish, but in the context of this book, I valued all of the nasty bits as much as the rest of the story.sneako's review
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, and Medical trauma
booksthatburn's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The “Editor’s Note” is part of the story, don’t skip it (it’s not very long). The way the footnotes weave through the story creates some artful and subtle shifts in tone and pacing, with pauses created by reading some bit of the meta-story before returning to the main narrative. The text plays with desire and euphoria and it’s so beautiful; euphoria from simple happiness, joy from sex, bliss from finally feeling right in one’s skin by way of craft, mastery, or gender expression. The counterpoint to this desire is longing; waiting for those golden moments when everything just fits, and taking measures to make that happiness more permanent, more stable. The narrator’s understanding of the text is filled with longing and tempered with discontent, balanced so it’s not quite the same emotional note as the main text (that would be too neat), but something complimentary and frequently wry. It’s also a narrative of heists, escapes, and close calls, an exhilarating tale which was wholly absorbing.
After a heartfelt and contemplative Editor’s note, Confessions of the Fox starts out with some delightfully antiquated erotic descriptions by way of describing The Fox’s crimes. This book weaves sexual and/or erotic content into every chapter and most scenes, in such a way that anyone who will be uncomfortable with frequent coy and not so coy references to anatomy and discussions of sex and sexual desire would be better to skip this one. But if all that sounds great to you, this book is amazing and I hope you‘ll love it as much as I do. This is apparently a somewhere between historical fiction and a retelling of a folk tale about a probably real person, I didn't come to this knowing any of that and still enjoyed it immensely. It's grounded enough to be completely comprehensible without any of that background knowledge, and I love how it turned out. The characterization is excellent, even secondary characters who only exist as references in the footnotes feel like they have an appropriate level of presence and vivacity. The perspective and contemplation by the Narrator in the footnotes balances the rawness of the MC.
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, and Blood
Moderate: Child abuse, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, and Slavery
CW for gaslighting, misgendering, racism, dysphoria, quarantine, plague, slavery, blood, surgery, child abuse, depictions of sex work, gun violence, violence, public execution, parental death, major character death, death.