Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

5 reviews

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.5

i expected to love this a lot more than i did, especially because of how much i liked this authors previous work. mainly due to some of the content warnings i think

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

kaitlinlovesbooks's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Death of parent

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Blood, and Police brutality

Minor: Alcoholism, Misogyny, and Sexual harassment

pages_with_panda's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

 “We cannot know the depths of another’s sacrifice,”

This could be your loss. But it’s not. It’s mine, and you might think you’re lucky, but for every lucky person, unluckiness arrives. Our existence shouldn’t depend on luck. It should depend on justice, what is good, what is right.

A slow-paced, character driven story of five generations of a a Mexican/Indigenous family in Denver Colorado.

I really liked the back and forth between generations! It took a second for it to make sense and it was non-linear but I liked being able to connect the stories and characters.

I wanted to cry near the end for what happened to the family. Every generation had their own world-shattering problem and it was so personal.

I felt the ending was a bit abrupt though and I would’ve liked more details, but the last sentence was beautiful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Rape, and Abortion

sjanke2's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring reflective tense 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Grief, Medical trauma, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

hollyd19's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• 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

3.5

On its face, this book feels tailor-made for my reading tastes: a intergenerational historical fiction centered on indigenous & immigrant communities in Colorado. 

Unfortunately, it ultimately fell flat for me. 

The story is ambitious and parts are truly gorgeous. Fajardo-Anstine is a deeply atmospheric writer and developed a rich sense of place at every juncture of the book. However, I felt the narrative was underdeveloped and found the protagonist, Luz, a bit flat compared to the secondary characters (I was specifically drawn to Avel and Simodecea). Luz is paradoxically presented as both naive and wise, a tension that I struggled to shake as I read. Introduced with a nickname dripping in foreshadowing (“Little Light”), I was disappointed that her inherited gifts were fairly inconsequential to the story. 

I had an excellent chat with a friend right after we both finished the book, and I summarized it then as a book that felt like a novella padded with short stories. The depth of development around each generation was very varied, which in the end left me feeling dissatisfied by the lack of closure in all but the main arc.

I was specifically dissatisfied by the sudden drop-off of Simodecea’s story, the incompleteness of Maria Josie’s plot line, and the way Diego shows back up at the end and everything is “fixed,” as if Luz couldn’t figure out how to move forward on her own. Also, I remain perplexed by the way the gift of prophecy is passed down matrilineally but somehow includes and adopted son?

In the end, I enjoyed it well enough, but I wanted more from this read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Racism, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Police brutality, and Colonisation

Minor: Animal death