Reviews tagging 'Trafficking'

Aetherbound by E.K. Johnston

24 reviews

al3xbug's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

this is the type of book i think i'll be thinking about for a while- not because it was very good, but because a lot of the topics are unorthodox in contrast to mainstream books. they were definitely uncomfortable themes (forced pregnancy, calorie obsession, human trafficking). it was kinda fucked but also the complete opposite? nothing was resolved and the issues of the book were never expanded upon. the main plot point is pendt becoming happier. like... nothing else is focused on for long besides that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, Pregnancy, Colonisation, and War

thesummerstorms's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Sexual violence, Slavery, Medical content, Trafficking, and Medical trauma

Minor: Child death and Transphobia

Sexual violence is an approximate tag, as we don't have a content warning for reproductive coercion.

monnibo's review against another edition

dark hopeful reflective 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? It's complicated

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Colonisation

Minor: Confinement, Infertility, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Medical content, Trafficking, and Classism

mmackoy's review against another edition

hopeful medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Pregnancy

Moderate: Child death and Trafficking

Minor: Transphobia

booksthatburn's review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

This is a trans-affirming sci-fi book with a premise revolving around someone who has the ability to (in certain contexts) manipulate genetics. It's lovely to read something that doesn't try to "fix" the trans character, but finds other solutions for the in-universe problems caused by their chromosomal situation. It's similarly understanding and cathartic around issues including but not limited to neglect and food restriction. The tagline is "There's a fine line between survival and cruelty", and the overall arc is of someone who was raised under the claim of survival-driven scarcity, slowly, in a zone of love and abundance, untangling which parts of her upbringing were actually just cruel. 

Major pieces of backstory and world-building are conveyed in a series of well-described but pretty dense infodumps, one at the very start and a few more sprinkled throughout the rest of the text. They felt a bit clunky but were sufficiently brief as to keep from being overwhelming. The overall effect works well and I love the main characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy

Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, and Medical trauma

Minor: Child death and Death

From the book: “This book contains a scene of medical violence. Characters also obsess about food and count calories.”

emjrey's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.0

I quite enjoyed this. Its definitely YA. Good to see a content warning at the very beginning for EDs but probably need extras as deals with a number of very heavy topics . 
Characters were likeable and they didn't feel too overdone. The story had enough world building to understand the plot and it felt like it was the first in a series. 
It was written is a fairly light way considering how dark some of the themes were. 

I enjoyed the first half more than the second. The second felt a bit disconnected from the first. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Trafficking

Calorie counting, forced insemination

wardenred's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

 

The part of her that wondered about the future and dreamed about flying a ship with her siblings was dying, and the part that was growing in its place was a silent, waiting thing.

This is a book I've been really looking forward to. Now that I've read it, my impressions, I have to admit, are mixed at best.

The first quarter of the story was exactly what the reviews and recs I've seen promised: the quiet horror of being a mostly useless gear in a family machine, told in a way that simultaneously never shied away from how terrible the abuse and dehumanization is and made it mundane, everyday, bearable to read. I loved it. I mean, it was bone-chilling, it made me grit my teeth, it made me hate nearly everyone on the Harland who wasn't Pendt, and I couldn't stop reading because I couldn't wait for Pendt to figure out a way out. To delve into a different world and start figuring out who she was as a person, building herself up from what she endured.

Then she did escape, and something about the story changed that made me feel almost cheated. Two more important characters were introduced: Ned and Fisher. I liked them both, on a surface level. On a deeper level, I feel like I never got to learn enough about them. I just saw snapshots and some condensed histories. Pendt's journey, now that her story was intertwined with Ned's and Fisher's, quickly took the same shapes: snapshots of important moments, sort-of-summaries of what went on in-between. The further into the book I got, the more rushed and jagged the pacing got. 

It was a jarring contrast to the slower paced, moderately detailed, consistent unfolding of Pendt's coming of age on board of the Harland generation ship in the first part. Yes, of course, that first part also contained its share of "summaries between snapshots," but it was different. More ordered somehow. Far better flowing.

There's also the fact that the story itself is sort of this small, intimate, slice-of-life-ish tale of several people's daily lives on the fringe of some really big events in a vast spacefaring world. There were enough hints and explanations at this big story, but they were kind of hard for me to pull together into a coherent picture. It's like I lost my grip on them whenever I focused on the small, intimate story like the book supposedly wanted me to. But then certain intricacies of that story relied on understanding the bigger picture. I tried to figure out the details of that bigger picture and keep them in mind. I lost my grip on the characters and their personal arcs. Reading became frustrating. To be honest, outside of the magic system (which, granted, is quite inventive and unique, I feel horribly lost on about every aspect of worldbuilding after finishing the book. 

All in all, in spite of the several things I really loved—the first 1/4 of the story, the main characters, the magic, the thoughtful discussion of body autonomy and outdated gender norms and duty vs freedom—I'm sad to say this book was a disappointing experience. As a matter of fact, all the things listed above made it even more disappointing: the beginning of the story held such promise, and then it dissolved into a mess of confusing pacing and such. It felt like there were several potential books crammed into quite a few pages here. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Eating disorder, and Medical trauma

Minor: Trafficking

kat_ml's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

Started off strong and then got slow in the middle.  The last quarter of the book was confusing and rushed and honestly ruined it for me.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder

Moderate: Child abuse

Minor: Trafficking

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

tense medium-paced

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

2.0

I feel like this had so much potential, but even though it was short, the pacing was off and not a lot happened until about 3/4 of the way through the book. There was a lot of focus on building the world, building these characters, but then I wasn't really sure what the point was? A lot of the exposition could have been cut down, and more of the plot points at the end expanded on more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Eating disorder, and Trafficking

Moderate: Bullying, Death, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Grief and Pregnancy

Women are forced into pregnancy in this, and there are a lot of instances of counting calories.

secretsparrow's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Medical content, Trafficking, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy

Not listed content warnings include: non-consensual artificial insemination and extensive discussion of food in both positive and negative ways (the narrative is ultimately food-positive)