Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis

14 reviews

prunechips's review against another edition

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challenging dark hopeful sad tense slow-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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vivelarevolution's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

3.5

This book felt like a romp through a fun but incredibly dark space opera fantasy. The worldbuilding was probably my favorite part of the book--it's so intricate!--but I loved the characters as well. I definitely had an easier time getting through the First Sister's POV than Lito's, possibly because Lito's scenes were much more oriented around combat? In general, I felt like I really got to know First Sister and get invested in her, but with Lito I felt like I was chasing scraps of intrigue scattered amidst a whole lot of swordfighting. I did not like the first-person audio recordings thing from Hiro much at all other than as a means to glean new information; I wasn't able to connect with Hiro as a character through them.

Despite the limited amount of narration that I specifically enjoyed, everyone and everything felt very well-developed and it was a fun world to get to know. I'll be checking out the second book for sure, but I'm nervous I won't like it unless it has a lot more time and focus on First Sister, Ofiera, maybe Hiro, and
Eden
.

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livelaughlesbian99's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I really wanted to love this book! Unfortunately the structural problems are just glaring. I spent the first third of the book trying to keep up with largely unexplained worldbuilding. Without that grounding the flow of the plot was kind of confusing. I didn’t fully understand the significance of characters’ choices when I don’t fully understand their position in the world. It’s too bad— good world and premise but the execution killed a lot of it for me.

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major_tom's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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? No

2.75

This book has been in my TBR pile for some time and I’m so glad I finally got to it! 

At first, I was afraid the lore would be too confusing - I am not very familiar with space-related fiction and never had much interest in it. Here, the story started straight away - I liked how we discovered things along the way, without long and boring history lessons. Each chapter has a short passage before it, which could be a letter, a quote, or other short piece that gave more insight into the world. I love good exposition and, I’m my opinion, Linden A. Lewis here did a great job.

The main character are interesting, flawed and have their own priorities and desires. There are some flaws, but I’ll talk about them later.

I loved how unique this world is. It really stands out with how logical historical development of each nation is.
Why the religion is the way it is, or why there is no AI anymore.
And guess what? It’s THAT easy to include queer folks! And it only enriches the plot, the world building and everyone’s satisfaction from reading.

However, I got quite disappointed by the end. The ending felt rushed, used mostly explanation rather than exposure, and gave a bit of flat character development. I saw how some things before could be linked to the plot twists, but still it wasn’t satisfactory. I felt that the ending was made that way to create reason for the next book. I am afraid that the next books will turn to obvious conflicts and will greatly worsen in world-building. In my opinion, the book by itself is great as stand-alone (if the ending was changed). I hope I’m wrong, because I still enjoyed it most of the way.

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planetesastraea's review against another edition

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adventurous tense
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

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salemander's review against another edition

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5.0

comparing this book to the Handmaids Tale does not do it justice. took me a second to get into the authors tone and rhythm but once i did i couldn’t put this shit down. i know it’s not gonna turn out well since this shit is already dark as hell but please i want these characters to have peace so goddamn bad

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molls's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

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howwoolatthemoon's review against another edition

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0.25

CONTENT WARNING: rape and sex slavery.

In a sense this review *might* be spoilers, but I'm not giving away major plot points. I will merely reveal some details that I believe the author means for the reader to discover gradually. But you, Dear Reader, deserve a Strong Content Warning!

In some ways this was inventive and an interesting world, but I couldn't at all say I enjoyed it. The first sister is part of an order of priestesses who are also sex slaves. While not uncommon historically, it's certainly not pleasant to imagine. Told by a female author, it feels less like the women are objectified for the sake of the male gaze. But still, I think I'd rather not read about such a brutal and terrifying situation. They're raised from children to become sex slaves, and fairly horrible abused while growing up. They have no choice in who they have sex with unless they get a powerful man to choose to "own" them. Unless or until they are owned by one man, their job is to hear the confessions of soldiers and then fuck them. The fucking is neither optional nor rare; it's an integral part of the confession/absolution. And they take confessions at apparently all hours of the day or night, often many times a day. They also are physically unable to talk -- ostensibly so that they don't give away the military secrets of their rapists (not that they ever use this term) -- but they use sign language among themselves and communicate often and in a very detailed way, so I don't feel super confident about those military secrets being kept.

So it's absolutely brutal, but it's all slightly softened because a woman wrote it. Men so often will write a rape scene A) for the male gaze, and/or B ) as an event that furthers the story of a man, so I generally try to avoid books by men that contain any rape scenes. I would hope that a woman's perspective on a rape that takes place as part of a story would help us to better understand things from her point of view, which is the more common experience I've had with reading non male authors. And yes, I suppose this did that. But to make this entire order of priestesses as sex slaves? And to make that fact so integral to the plot? I dunno. It's too much. And too terrifying. And too brutal. And too hugely necessary for the plot -- so... why write that plot?

Why?

Also, now that I think about it, this might be an entire whole full sized book about an order of priestesses that STILL didn't pass the bechdel test. I mean maybe it did, but the fact that I'm still trying to remember any conversation between two women that wasn't about either a specific man or about men in general... nope, I don't think it did. Huh.

Also, why?

This was set in a futuristic world with space travel and an interesting military structure. Women are in the military, with ranks high and low, without anyone treating them as weaker or incapable in any way. The military also is trained from childhood, and there's a kind of parallel there with the sisterhood. There's an element of colonialism, with an oppressed culture that doesn't have the same level of tech that the oppressors use. This could have been interesting to explore further. The novel examines the complicated nature of family power and dysfunction and defining oneself in adulthood as separate from your origins, and could've done more with that. Seems like the author was able to envision a world where women were not objects. But then, there's the sisterhood of sex slave priestesses as the main plot.

Why.

Anyway, some of the world building is super interesting and I would love to read a different book with some of the same elements, but I won't be reading the rest of this series and I wish I could get my time back.

(Also I've noticed that I tend to spend more time on reviews of books I disliked than books I loved, and I don't know how to feel about that.)

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bookishjd's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0


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peach_pie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.0


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