Reviews with content warning for Torture - Thornhedge

Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

8 reviews

mishmoshroom's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

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

5.0

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

THORNHEDGE is a Sleeping Beauty retelling which recasts the sleeper as someone best never woken: a faerie changeling whose confusion at the human world and disregard for other lives turns her into someone who can only be contained in sleep or stopped forever in death. The sleeper is constrained and contained by Toadling, the once-human girl who was stolen from her cradle and replaced by that very same changeling.

I like this as a take on Sleeping Beauty, but it plays the idea of changelings straight, not engaging with the historical links between “changeling” children and autism (or other ways of being ostracized for being strange). In that light, featuring a child so unable to learn social rules that she must be kept or killed becomes a more fraught narrative, one that makes the story harder to enjoy. I like Toadling and Halim, but because of how the backstory is told first as memories then as stories to Halim, I remain unsure just how much Toadling told him of what had happened. I appreciate Halim as an idea of a character, but as a novella there wasn’t really room to flesh out that many significant characters and Toadling received most of the detail (to Halim’s detriment). The time dilation between the human world and Faerie allows for a couple of cool narrative moments. Ultimately this is a book I would neither recommend nor dissuade someone from reading.

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yomireads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.75

A very cute story that subverts genre expectations. It blends the notion of fairy tales, fae, locked towers, and love in a lighthearted story.

Because it is a short novella it lacks the depth of character chemistry between Halim and Toadling, but suspension of disbelief works in favor of their interactions.

The plot reolution felt very ill considered. I'd have preferred a moment of character growth for a decision to have been made. As is, it robs the characters the impact of choice and feels incredibly anticlimactic. The story's conclusion, however, was very sweet and I was happy with the wrapup.

My only other critique is truly just a personal matter concerned the handling of "changlings" as a whole. Knowing now that in the past, "
changlings were just abused children with autism or other undiagnosed mental illnesses, the messaging feels off-color. I know this isnt the author's intention, and that within much faerie lore they kinda exist in this grey area of magical and painfully real, so it's not awful. But it's hard not to see as wrong from a historical standpoint. Even if it's relatively harmless since we no longer believe autistic children are changelings.

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