Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Tarnished Are the Stars by Rosiee Thor

12 reviews

poisoned_icecream's review

fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, and Death

emily_mh's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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

3.25

I really liked the writing style of this one. It was descriptive and poetic without being too over-the-top and ridiculous. For that reason alone I’d be interested in checking out more books by this author. This particular story ended up falling a bit flat, though. 

The plot started off super strong but kind of waned at the halfway point. Everything ended up feeling half-baked or unrealistic. I was left confused about the motives of those involved, and the resolution was downright unbelievable. 

The world-building was so plain. There was nothing compelling or captivating about it. 

Eliza’s character development was rushed, so that it felt unnatural. She was so firmly set in her ways that I didn’t believe her change in character could have happened within a few days. I will say that Anna and Nathaniel’s development WAS well done, however. In both cases it felt like a long time coming and the events of the plot provided that catalyst for change, so the development felt earned. 

Even though the quality of this book wasn’t great, I did actually enjoy reading it! And as I said, the writing style was fab. So this author is definitely not a write-off for me! 

Rep: sapphic MC, lesbian (word not used even though there were opportunities to use it, and words like aromantic and asexual exist) MC, aroace MC

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Grief, Medical content, Ableism, Blood, Child death, Death, Murder, Violence, Child abuse, and Death of parent

Minor: Vomit, Alcohol, Gun violence, Classism, and Pregnancy

Moderate: imprisonment, loss of a loved one, fainting Minor: sick loved one, blackmail, theft, capital punishment, child birth

mxbluet18's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted sad 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

5.0

Trigger warnings for Tarnished are the Stars include: medical content, childbirth and pregnancy, child death, grief, death, physical violence, parental abuse, physical abuse, ableism and classism.
☆
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I initially picked this up because I knew it has an asexual character in it, but it quickly became that I was invested in the characters (some more than others though) and I just had to finish it to find out where the story was going.
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I read Fire Becomes Her last year and found myself loving the writing style and characters in that one, and had had Tarnished on my TBR for a while so I made it a priority when I managed to get hold of it. I've also used the book to talk about an important point in an essay I'm working on about asexuality in the written media.
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For me, having asexual representation, and aromantic asexual representation is something I love to see in the books I read, especially if the ideas or the feelings portrayed are a depiction I can relate to or sympathise with. Suffice it to say, I loved the representation in the book, I loved the characters (or those I was supposed to love anyway), I loved the character arcs, and the plot was rich and delicate.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Ableism, Classism, Medical content, Pregnancy, and Grief

cozytam's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

A fun sci fi dystopian novel with Aro Ace and Sapphic characters. I thought the overall story was interesting but there weee a few plot elements that I wish were executed better.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, and Death of parent

shapesandcolours's review

adventurous emotional 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Medical content

Moderate: Child death and Body horror

Minor: Pregnancy

animaepanda's review

adventurous emotional

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.75

I love the aroace and sapphic rep so much! :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Classism, Emotional abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Blood, and Colonisation

Moderate: Grief and Terminal illness

Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia and Lesbophobia

The ace/arophobia is internalized ace/arophobia.

dari's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Medical content

Moderate: Child death and Death of parent

siannas_second_library's review

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Child abuse

Moderate: Medical content and Blood

mandaoof's review

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

The premise of the book was really appealing, and it was a fun read. But the characters while going through development, somehow I never gained an emotional connection to them. Multiple deaths in the book occurred and yet I never was sad over it. I think part of it was the multiple POV's- the author was busy building up a world and establishing characters while developing them. Things also moved pretty damn fast- the development and the plot. Like, if I I kept track of things right, things seem to have happened over a two week period or something? Without going into spoilers, that is a short time period for the characters to have dealt with what they did and come to healthy conclusions, overriding years of thinking.

However- the aroace scene? This aroace fucking loved it. Took a picture of it to send to some friends who are ace because I was just going 'yessss!!!!'. I just found it very ironic that the romance plot made me go 'ew' because of my small romance repulsion lmao. So if you are aromantic and reading this to see if you want to read it, don't if you experience romance repulsion to a decent degree. To be fair, it is a YA novel. I knew what I was risking.

Overall, it is a good read. I am going to be passing the book on to a friend whose reading tastes fits more so with this genre. I would also buy this book for any young teens in my life to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Death

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Pregnancy

meganlilyflower's review

3.5

I wanted to like this book more than I did but I did like the book. 

The Good:

• Ace/aro rep: especially in moments of that characters POV when we are observing the romantic couple in the story. 
• The queer couple are not the focus of the story but it doesn’t feel like instalove either. They aren’t just suddenly a couple, instead we get them becoming friends who trust each other while we the reader know that they have an observable connection and are attracted to each other. I love that one is clearly gay and one seems to be bi!
• The sci-fi elements: the clock tech especially was super cool to me. Some steampunk aesthetic without some of the steampunk tropes and without going all in on the style. 

The Meh & the Missed:

• I felt there was a lot of missed opportunity for those clock hearts to be the heart of the story. It felt like we forgot about the clock heart component and Nathaniel’s “never having maintenance” when that could’ve been used 
• The climax felt rushed to me. Maybe it was because my last read was adult and almost 500 pages but I felt this could’ve been longer and given me more mundane interactions within the manor that added world building and gave us more tender moments with our queer couple
• The queer couple isn’t the center of the story and I wish they’d come into focus more often. It just was happening in the background (literally as we got the thought in the back of characters minds) The set up had some enemies to lovers potential and I would’ve liked the see that pushed harder and followed through. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Physical abuse

Minor: Ableism and Medical content