Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

69 reviews

excritos's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Self harm, Violence, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Torture and Vomit

Minor: Sexual content

katievallin's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Racism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, and Death of parent

Minor: Body shaming, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

lindseyhall44's review against another edition

dark 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

3.5

Review is withheld in solidarity of Harper Collins’s workers/union on strike.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and War

franceselsie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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

3.25

This book wasn’t what I expected. I have to admit I don’t know a lot about Jewish folklore but I’d anticipated this being lighter in themes and tone than it was – don’t let the cover fool you!

I found Evike (the protagonist) quite frustrating as she seems to be riddled with angst; I found myself often forgetting that she’s supposed to be 25 rather than 15. 

The second half of the novel was much easier for me to read than the first half because I think it took me a while to get used to the rhythm of the writing and how dark the content was, so feel like it flowed better as it went on. The list of translated words at the back of the book was also really helpful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Torture, Violence, and Antisemitism

gemmie_gee's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Grief and Death of parent

bri_fabiano's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Torture, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Sexual content and War

adonis_march's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring tense medium-paced

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

3.75

The Wolf and the Woodsman is a debut novel. It’s got the clunk of one. But by god, is it a good debut novel. For all my issues with some of the tropes in this book, and it’s pacing, and occasionally meandering plot, the latter half of this novel had my heart pounding, my stomach doing turns.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Torture, Xenophobia, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Confinement, Fatphobia, and Kidnapping

This is a book very much about the horrific history and acts of Christian zealotry that caused both pagan and Jewish communities to be wiped out, and echoes the centuries of fear and grief that the Jewish community has had to endure since.

nettleviolet's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A

1.75

This had to be one of my least favourite books of the year, which was super disappointing. To start, I found the characters really inconsistent, unbelievable, repetitive and one-dimensional and the romance between the two main characters to be totally unbelievable and gross. I hate the trope of "the oppressed falls for the oppressor" (where the oppressor is a person of great power in the oppressive system) because it is very hard to do and they did it really poorly in this book. 

The first half was mostly this blossoming, totally unbelievable and really gross romance, which consisted of the "strong female character" doing her best to both be mean to, but not hurt the feelings of, her captor that she is "falling in love" with.  

But, into the second half, I enjoyed the story more as it delved more into politics, spirituality, family and ancestry. Not enough to enjoy the book, but enough to rate it more than 1 star. 

There were many folk tales peppered through the book which were my favourite part, and the mythology was well developed as was the magic system. However, neither of these were good enough to redeem the book.

I'm not super into horror/gore and there was a lot of it in this book and that was also off-putting. BUT I have definitely tolerated higher levels of horror/gore in books I've enjoyed, so I think it just was a point against a book I already hated. 

Overall, if I hadn't been reading this for a bookclub I would've DNF'd it about 20% in, if not sooner. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Murder

r_a_bell's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

The perfect example of what a stand-alone should be! You get all of the story of a trilogy in one book. The beginning journey did seem a little pointless in the end, and I kind of wish it had been a bit shorter if it wasn’t really going to go anywhere. However, it was still enjoyable to read and didn’t feel unnecessarily drawn out. I love how realistic it was its depiction of social structures and relationships, especially in regard to religion. I also really liked the end! It didn’t wrap everything up in a neat little bow just because that’s what the author thought readers would want. The ending was realistic and true to the story, yet satisfying, and it left that little kernel of hope that everything would end up as a “happily ever after.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Gore, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Antisemitism, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

jessslibrary's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, and Torture

Moderate: Violence, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry