Reviews with content warning for Child death - The Spear Cuts Through Water

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

11 reviews

stinkyleaf's review

adventurous dark hopeful sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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

Slowish start. Captivating style and narration. Dark and brutal depiction of Old Country life and death, very violent. Original legend/ mythology shines through

Content Warnings

vigil's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

brideshead's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

A perfect blend of first, second, and third person perspective that masterfully evokes folklore, epic fantasy, and brutal human drama. It haunted me the whole time, and it was a visual delight with searing imagery. The characters probably will not leave me for a long while.

Content Warnings

uncreativeoops's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious 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

3.75

I'm still a bit confused tbh. The worldbuilding was really impressive as well as the characters and plot, but I felt kinda detached from it. Loved the inverted theatre part and the switching to 2nd person POV, which gave the main story the atmosphere of a fairy tale. There are also short parts in first person which I now want in every fantasy novel, it was such a good way of humanising background characters and conveying atmosphere. Sometimes the writing was a bit clunky, but most of the scenes were incredibly visual; I could totally see it as a movie. Or maybe several movies, because every part/day had a completely different vibe and they didn' quite connect. And when it started with this magical theatre and fairy tales about how the moon fell in love with the sea I did not expect this much graphic violence. But definitely a new concept. The closest comparison i can think of is The Forever Sea by Joshua Philipp Johnson though the setting is very difderent.

Content Warnings

discarded_dust_jacket's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense 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

3.0

This is a very imaginative story told in a very imaginative way, I have to say that first. The structure of the narrative and how it’s presented is like nothing I’ve ever read. The world is also incredibly unique and vivid.

The inclusion of the whispers of the dead peppered throughout add a ton of depth and nuance to an already multi-dimensional story.

I think the reason why it didn’t get a higher rating from me had more to do with my tendency to space out and struggle through dense fantasy. Especially in a book this long, the writing has to be naturally propulsive, or else it becomes too easy to simply give up in the event that you hit a slog 250 pages in, only realize you’ve still got half the book to go.

That happened to me here. Somewhere around the 370-480 page section of the story, I had to force myself to push on. All in all, I thought the ending was satisfying, but maybe it would’ve been easier for me to get through if the story hadn’t tried to do SO much.

Content Warnings

lilopalu's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious 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

3.75

This book leaves me very confused. There is much to love about this book. I liked the narrativ framework with the theatre and the at times dream like quality. It is very poetic. And while it took me until well into the second day to get connected to the main characters but afterwards I loved them and their relationship very much.
But for long stretches of the book I felt very distant maybe also out of self-protection because for me there was just too much graphic violence in this book to really love it.
If you are sensitiv or have certain triggers, please read the content warnings not just of my review because there are so many that I don't think, I got them all.

Content Warnings