Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - The Gifts That Bind Us

Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

The Gifts That Bind Us by Caroline O'Donoghue

45 reviews

meganpbell's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.75

This series is just so fantastic at capturing the feelings and growing pains and interpersonal challenges of the teen years, all while fighting religious fundamentalism with witchcraft, queer love, and the power of friendship. This installment especially excels with representations of queer, racial, neurodivergent, and disability marginalization—and with portraying the suffering so often behind the worst actions—and it’s just a fun ride!

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graperuth's review

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dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

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caidyn's review

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dark emotional 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

4.25

Another great book in this series! And I loved seeing Roe's growth over the course of this book.

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rinku's review against another edition

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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? It's complicated

4.0

The beginning of The Gifts That Bind Us was so great that I was ready to give it five stars but sadly, the focus of the main plot shifts later to the aspects that didn’t interest me so much and it becomes a bit too irritating for my taste.

Lily is now back, and all our characters got some kind of magical power: Maeve can now read minds and emotions of other people, Fiona has healing powers, Roe can open doors, and Lily is able to control electricity. Weird things start to happen, and the friends have to find out what causes them before it’s too late. If I’m being honest, I was more invested in the coming-of-age-elements of the story since it’s the last year of school and Maeve is not totally sure what she wants to do after school and struggles with dealing with all the changes happening around her.

What I still love about this novel is how fantasy elements get combined with social justice issues, like queer rights or classism, though I wish the Children and their influence on the town would’ve been thematized more. I’ve said it before, but this plot point still really reminds me of the Engelsfors series. This is probably coincidental but when comparing the two series, Engelsfors is just better in showing how a cult can slowly take over a whole town and manipulate it. Another similarity of both novels is that

the school is some kind of magically important place

Towards the ending though, the story just got a bit weird, and I didn’t fully understand what was happening at the end. It was so obvious from the beginning that

Heather was evil. The story gets quite creepy towards the end which I liked but it’s so weird how Maeve suddenly owns the school

What I appreciate about the characters is that they are a realistic portrayal of teenagers and that there’s a big focus on the friendship between them. At first, there’s jealously between them since Lily is back and mixes everything up between Maeve and Fiona. This creates a kind of tense dynamic between them. In the course of the story,

we see how Lily and Maeve get closer to each other again which was great

. What I appreciate about Maeve is that her feelings are quite relatable and that she messes up because she isn’t hundred percent a good person. Aaron is still an interesting character but I’m not sure what I should think about

his redemption arc. He was a great villain before, and I don’t know about the new villains

. I furthermore have to admit that I totally forgot that Lily and Roe are siblings since we barely see them interact as such.

Besides some of the critique I had about The Gifts That Bind Us, I’m still curious how the story will end and if I will be happy about the ending.

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christineolivia's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious fast-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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cjmast's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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jeanbean1617's review

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emotional mysterious reflective 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

4.5

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osladek's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.0

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josb's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Decided to read this one because I wanted something to pull me in and the first book had no problem doing that. Despite this one mostly focusing on the Children of Brigid slowly taking over the town, I found it was not as tough a read as I was expecting. Yes there are scenes of homophobia, gender policing, and slut shaming, but there is also a big problem the characters are trying to solve while they try to avoid the "scary" cultists. There are scenes where they have to interact with the cultists, but the reader is not subjected to unnecessary awful descriptions just for the sake of it.

This book in the series is very "dark forest" where our characters are not okay after the events from the first book and are trying to piece themselves together. Note that there is mention and descriptions of self harm.

I appreciated that the author went with a 3 book series, I can't imagine squishing all of this content into a duology. The end of this book got me really excited for book 3 so the setup was certainly there. There are certainly enough reveals in this second book that I don't feel it was too stretched out.

If you like darker YA's I highly recommend. The worldbuilding is interesting enough and the chapters are written in a way that hooks you and makes you curious to continue. Unfortunately, the "big bads" are complete pricks and manifest themselves as hard core old testament Christians which means there can be triggering content for some readers.

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eversaurus's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious 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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