Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

15 reviews

imscrem's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I had a rocky start with this book, and it only got better at nearly 300 pages in — but it became a fantastic read, with extremely good world building and exciting twists and turns.

I did not enjoy the darkness of a lot of the early story, and often felt that the main character was being mercilessly beaten and picked on. Perhaps this was the author’s way of balancing him out (he may be a genius and good at everything he does, BUT he has terrible luck and every asshole gets to beat him). It didn’t feel like it balanced his genius to me, it just felt like reading about a 12 year old getting beaten for a hundred pages. Maybe I’m sensitive.

Still, there were ~500 pages of an amazing story, complete with a mysterious library, good friends, and many heroic escapades. A good read. 

Having read this book, I’m conflicted about whether to pick up the second book in the series. This book was both amazing and terrible. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

Minor: Forced institutionalization and Medical content

dreadspawn's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Drug use and Misogyny

Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Forced institutionalization

danasaur's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, and War

moond4ncer's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

xandry's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Sexual assault, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

nortsapa's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

this book really hasn’t aged well? the writing around poverty & music makes me feel like the author isn’t very familiar with the lived experiences of poor folk & musicians (“if you’ve never been xyz you wouldn’t understand” is said a lot) and it has a very j.j. abrams “mystery box” plot style. it prefers being totally unpredictable to having a flowing plot with foreshadowing and the like. many offhand phrases are repeated over and over again (take a shot every time “times being what they are” is said)

i don’t like school settings and i wasn’t really prepared for us to spend 75% of this book in a school, or to encounter quite so much patriarchy. another review says the protagonist is a mary sue and i very much agree.

there’s lots of different fictional races, which i presume is why people say this cast is diverse, but it’s more like there’s russians & jews, the french & italians, the british, and romani people. as a jew, i always feel off-put by kinds of oppression/microaggressions faced by some groups in here, and by the fact that there’s a ‘money race’ for lack of a better term.

at many points the book was a chore to get through, and i was disappointed by the lack of a clean ending. also, lots of grammar/spelling/math errors in my edition?

overall i won’t be recommending it to anyone myself, but it’s a genre staple and fun to talk about with friends. definitely check the content warnings area before embarking.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

graphic depictions of whipping a child, pickup artistry, anti-sex work, timeskips

random_reader's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Physical abuse, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cursing, Drug use, Sexual content, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, and Alcohol

nerdkitten's review against another edition

emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Drug use, Mental illness, Sexism, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Vomit, Trafficking, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and War

midnightcomets's review against another edition

Started for epic fantasy, nice world-building, and magic, stopped because I hate being inside Kvothe's head and everything he utters makes me want to punch him.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Rape

dreklogar's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

0.5

This book was incredibly, offensively bad. The main character was unbearable, judgemental and arrogant and the narrative treated him with undeserved kindness. Sure, it's his story, told by him: usually, I'd just leave it at "this story is boring", but there is also the framing device. The story behind the story, which isn't narrated by Kvothe, and, well... We see the same there. He is so amazing that Chronicler wants to write about him at any cost, despite the aggression, bad temper and unfair treatment he gets at his hands. 

Random people tell stories about him, Bast adores him despite constantly acting like an abuse victim (the fear of Kvothe, being so incredibly keyed into his every slight mood shift, going as far as to constantly "teach" Chronicler how he should act), he does actually learn Chronicler's super complex short-hand very quickly. All of this is outside of the framing device and tells us that no, Kvothe isn't just full of himself. 

Add to that the casual sexism of the story, how it took over half the book for a female character to show up, only for her to be put on a pedestal (Fela did show up at some point, but really, what's Fela like except "beautiful" and "into Kvothe"). Add the incredibly disgusting scene where one teacher just sexually harrasses a female student and it's all just taken in stride. Comments on how all women hate Denna, because she's so beautiful, or how Denna is compared to a natural disaster as an excuse for her hurting people. Who needs agency, right?

Also, oh, the way the poverty was handled. The way Kvothe

managed to leave the streets

was ridiculous and frankly insulting.

Of course, showering 5-6 times removes all visible traces of poverty! When I told friends of mine how his hair was perfectly fine after he slept on the streets for two years, they were impressed anyone would be so uninformed as to write something this bad

.

This would all be more forgivable if not for the fact that the narrative keeps acting as if it's brilliant and has something to say about the human condition and experience. I lost count of how many times I read "If you haven't been X, you wouldn't know", and it is so clear that the author has not, in fact, been X, and has no idea either. The book was very insulting, very condescending and very, very unpleasant to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Grief, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Addiction and Forced institutionalization