Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

19 reviews

readwithde's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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? No

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Torture, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, and Classism

Minor: Confinement, Gore, Kidnapping, and Gaslighting

haley49's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was such an intricate and beautiful fantasy. All the povs fit together so well and told a story that was masterfully done. There were some skimmable parts, too many povs, some pacing issues, and a need (in my opinion) for more side character character depth. However, in the end the world building and continuous story was so well done I couldn’t help but enjoy it. I liked how the MC was Jewish as I hadn’t seen that in fantasy and you can really see how it effects her life. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Antisemitism, Grief, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual violence, Dementia, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Violence

maeverose's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.0

TL;DR: I’m sad because I really liked some aspects of this and it had the potential to be a favorite, but it needed to be shorter, have less povs, and have the romance not be toxic, and then make it a little more of a focus. I also don’t care for the gratuitous violence…

The toxic romances. First I should say that this isn’t a romance book. I went into this with the expectations of it being a fantasy romance and it’s definitely not. That’s my bad, I thought I’d heard people talk about it as if it was. There’s only a tiny tiny bit of romance at the very end, but the way the two male love interests treat their eventual partners is incredibly toxic. I made some lists to illustrate the point (spoilers, obviously & tw for rape and sa):

The Staryk king threatened to kill Miryem if she didn’t complete his tasks, threatened to kill her family, forced her to marry him, was physically aggressive with her, nearly raped her, trapped her in her room with no food or water for a day, used her to lengthen winter in turn harming people from her world, generally treated her like shit, it’s also made clear that his people killed and raped innocent people in the sunlit world for centuries, and he had no problem with it. Mirnatius scared Irina as a child by leaving her dead squirrels, clearly had no issues with the demon trying to kill her, touched her sexually without her consent and might’ve raped her if she hadn’t stopped him, generally treated her like shit

And it’s so sad because both of those relationships could have been really fun if they hadn’t been horrible to each other. I love a good enemies to lovers but this is not how you do it.

Gratuitous violence. Mostly from Wendy and Stepon’s povs, where they had to bring up at every opportunity that their father abused them. It felt like the author was just throwing it in there to keep the book feeling dark and gritty but there was no real purpose to it. We already know from the first few chapters that their father is a despicable human being, it didn’t need to be mentioned repeatedly every single time it switched to one of their povs.

The multiple povs. I only cared about Miryem’s and Irina’s a little bit towards the second half of the book. However I wouldn’t say the others were unnecessary (well, Magreta’s maybe) or couldn’t be interesting to other readers. I felt that it was usually pretty clear who’s pov it was right away, but the book does switch povs multiple times in every chapter, so it could get annoying.

Bad autism rep? I wanted to talk about one of the perspectives in particular: Wanda’s younger brother Stepon. His narrative voice is especially different from the others and I can’t tell if it’s just supposed to be that he’s young, abused and had a very isolated upbringing, or if he’s autistic coded. He has sensory issues with noise too, which could be a trauma response from his abuse, I’m not sure, but it felt like an attempt at a very stereotypical representation of autism, and if it was I don’t like that. It’s a very narrow minded interpretation of autism, not to mention it was just so tedious to read.

It’s overwritten. It definitely could’ve (should’ve, imo) been at least 100 pages shorter. Maybe its just because I wasn’t enjoying it that much but it felt like a drag to get through. I was bored for a lot of it.

The writing. Her style just doesn’t work for me. I liked the winter descriptions, and the folktale style of it, but I found certain sentences to be worded awkwardly to where I’d have to read them multiple times to get what she meant. It was the same with Uprooted for me. Like she’s trying to make it sound pretty but it’s just awkward to read. Could just be me. I did find some sentences that were actually grammatically incorrect though…

Homophobic?? This one was easy to miss, but the only - very minor side character - that’s gay has a crush on his own cousin. I feel like I don’t need to explain how that’s problematic.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Violence, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Antisemitism, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Incest, Miscarriage, and Classism

Graphic: Eye trauma Moderate: mentioned child rape

sapphicsoilscientist's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Violence, Antisemitism, and Injury/Injury detail

lunep's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Sexism, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol

Minor: Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual violence, Vomit, and Sexual harassment

Passing mentions of infant death, death by childbirth, child marriage, and execution by hanging. Themes around agency, obligations, and possessiveness -- specifically of daughters/wives/women overall -- in family relationships and marriage. Sexual assault/harassment is mentioned and discussed but mostly not present; several scenes involve pressure upon mutually unconsenting parties to consummate a relationship and unwanted sexual advances.

nisha_nee's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

Can't decide with a rating (for now). I had perspectives that I favored more than the others, that's why I felt that there were moments the book dragged on. This was a very loose retelling of Rumpelstiltskin but I enjoyed and devoured this within two days. I hope to reread this sooner but looking at the number of books I still need to read. I'm guessing it would be later rather than sooner.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Antisemitism

Moderate: Violence, Death of parent, and Alcohol

nofriendofmine's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Alcohol

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Antisemitism and Death of parent

jennifer_bush_73's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

⭐️⭐️⭐️=it was fine. 
This was a good story, and, overall, I liked it. It was more fairytale than fantasy. But the poor grammar and mechanics were a distraction from story. The story got bogged down in too much detail. A good editor could have made the story more readable by cutting the redundant details and correcting the grammar errors.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Stalking, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Minor: Domestic abuse, Genocide, Rape, and Murder

Fantasy