Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Zarina by Ellen Alpsten

6 reviews

lupinsoctober's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Death, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual assault, Grief, Pregnancy, and War

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Misogyny, and Physical abuse

oliviaalbion's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I read this book in just over a week and was entranced by it. I possibly would have finished it sooner, but occasionally needed mental breaks from the very detailed gruesome and violent scenes. I'm finding it difficult to rate as, although fast-paced, that wasn't always a good thing. The structure of the book seemed to jump around a bit, and although somewhat chronological, it didn't always make sense or seem relevant to the current chapter. It seemed overly long, and there were times I felt like I had read a lot because of how much had happened, but really, I hadn't read many pages. The cross between fiction and historical reality has been cleverly manipulated to show the life of the Tsarina. The highs and lows of her life as a female in Russia during the early 1700s have been well portrayed, and I appreciated that the dark history of this time was not glossed over. I don't doubt the historical accuracy of the research, but I do have an issue with some of the portrayals and doubt the primary sources (political/historical bias?). Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about Russia's history and especially seeing the female pov of the Tsarina. I'm glad I ticked this book off my list but would not read it again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child death, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Racial slurs, Slavery, Violence, Vomit, Antisemitism, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

This is not a bedtime story! Potentially a book to read when you're mentally ready for a lot of the topics that come with Russian history.

constantinareads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense 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

If you have doubts, try it. It really deserves more attention!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, War, and Classism

Moderate: Gore, Sexual violence, and Injury/Injury detail

book_dragon88's review against another edition

adventurous dark fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Alcohol, and War

ravensandlace's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

 Find this review and others like it at https://aravenclawlibraryx.wordpress.com

A special thank you goes out to St Martin's Press (my favorite publishing company) and Netgalley for allowing me to read this eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

This book wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I was a bit misled by the synopsis. I had thought it was going to be about how Catherine I came to power after her husband’s death. I thought I was going to see a struggle with her daughter, Elizabeth. But what I got was the entire life of Catherine up until the point of her husband’s death with a few pages of what happened afterwards. Which wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong but it wasn’t what I expected. This was a bit of a miss for me which is sad because I love St. Martin’s Press so much. 

It also didn’t help that was very confused as to who Catherine was. I had thought for the longest time that it was about Catherine the Great but come to find out, there was more than one Catherine. Monarchs really need to switch up their names. I had to do a google search in order to understand. Because Catherine the Great’s husband was also named Peter. I was just a big mess. So it was a very confusing 50 pages or so. 

I think one of the reasons why I didn’t completely love this was the formatting. I got an eARC from Netgalley which I know is bound to lead to some formatting issues. However, I found out that this was a re release so I thought the formatting would be a lot better. There were huge walls of texts.I’m talking just pages and pages of text with no paragraph breaks. It was hard to read at times. I had to turn on Netgalley night mode just so my eyes wouldn’t burn to death. I also had to read it on my phone because when I brought it up on my iPad, the formatting didn’t take into account the bigger screen so it was absolutely miniscule on my iPad. 

Beside the formatting issues, I actually enjoyed this book despite the rather less than rave review up until this point. Of course, that was after I figured out who it was about. It’s nice learning about different tsars than the usual ones like the Romanovs, which is what I usually gravitate towards. I admired Catherine for her strength and her cunning. She truly did whatever she could to make sure she would survive. Which I know can be rough considering what she was up against. 

One last thing before I wrap this review up. I know I posted my trigger warnings at the top of this review but I wanted to make a separate paragraph especially for this. This book was rough to read in terms of the content. There are a lot of places where Catherine is raped and it’s described pretty graphically. It was hard to read at times because your heart just bled for her. She didn’t deserve that. Not one bit. There is also so much misogyny and it’s often unchallenged as it usually is where historical books are involved. So take care while reading this book because it gets pretty rough. 

Overall, this was a good book hence the 3.5 star rating. I think I would have it rated it higher if the formatting hadn’t been such an issue. Also I think the synopsis needs to be changed. It’s kind of misleading. But other than that, I did enjoy this book but it just wasn’t one of my favorites. I’m not discouraged though. I’m sure St Martin’s Press has many more books for me and just waiting to be discovered. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Grief, and Medical trauma

nonbinarylibrarianwitch's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual violence