Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

19 reviews

annastorm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Murder

Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, Death, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Rape

redpanda_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Child abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Alcoholism and Murder

ink_and_wings's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Sexism, Body horror, and Death of parent

Moderate: Confinement, Antisemitism, Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, Violence, and War

Minor: Animal cruelty

mallorypen's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

I LOVE me a fairytale, and a feminist fairytale retelling is my jam. Wanda, Miryem, and Irina are all badasses in their own stories, and I enjoyed the way they all came together in their narratives eventually.

I also like how evil was not black and white. The tsar was entirely misunderstood, and his petulance, arrogance and cruelty were all born of despair and a literal lifetime of abuse - while I don’t think I found him entirely sympathetic at the end, I did enjoy the way Irina’s cleverness (refusing any payment but protection for herself and her people) saved him in the end. And the Staryk king was actually a super good and noble dude … by the standards of his people, not mortals. His transition from thinking he was condemning himself to an awful marriage to courting his wife was delightful, and I loved that we never learned his name.

I also enjoyed that Miryem’s name from her Staryk people was Open-Handed, and that her sense of generosity and fairness were so solid she was able to build back a kingdom with not only her powers, but her brains.

I took off a star for two reasons: the story took awhile to get really interesting, and the transitions in perspective were a little hard to decipher. The characters didn’t all have unique-enough voices to really know who was narrating right away, and trying to figure out which storyline I was in took me out of the story.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Racism, Murder, and Child abuse

Minor: Rape, Death of parent, and Sexual assault

brassmonkey's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

3.0

The second half is just really fucking boring. Sorry. Cool concept.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Murder, and Death of parent

Moderate: Antisemitism, Rape, Sexual harassment, and Blood

Minor: Stalking, Miscarriage, War, and Animal cruelty

tak_everlasting's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

I'd read a whole book of just Irina and Melirnous, but unfortunately Novik didn't feel the same way about writing them, and

Spoiler

robbed us by having their final scene be from the prespective of Margreta. No. I wanted either a Irina or Melirnous ending, not the side character. Yes, Margreta and Stefan are important perspectives, but the scenes from them could easily been reduced by 50% and given to characters with a more active role.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Antisemitism, and Animal death

eddiroll's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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: Murder

Moderate: Violence and Antisemitism

Minor: Rape

mar_gier's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-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

4.0

I really loved Spinning Silver, but it could be a bit of a slog to get through at times.

All of the characters were very wordy in both their thoughts and their descriptions of things. Also, dialogue exchanges seemed few and far between at times, and I do wish that there was a bit of them.

Nonetheless, I really did adore this book. The cast of characters were all relatively likeable to some degree, and they all felt extremely distinct from one another. Like, despite the fact that the chapters and scenes weren't labeled when there was a change in POV, you could always tell within the first sentence or three. (BTW, this book is all in 1st Person with like 6 distinct POVs.)

My favorite thing was seeing all the plot threads intertwining with one another, along with all of the characters' arcs. The character development and motivations are so deeply entrenched with the former that I think it's impossible to separate the two without having the story structure collapse.

But yeah, loved this book, but it was a bit slow-paced for my liking. You should read it.

(Also, all of the TWs I listed aren't super prevalent in the book except to one character really, but I wanted to be thorough just in case.)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Murder, Violence, Gore, Emotional abuse, and Domestic abuse

goizi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child death, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Misogyny, and War

Minor: Death of parent

rockyroadbutch's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Racism, Death of parent, Violence, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Alcoholism, Miscarriage, Sexism, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Animal cruelty