Reviews tagging 'Incest'

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

216 reviews

every_atom_reads's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest and Rape

eelitorr's review against another edition

emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Good story with twists and turns. Nonlinear, providing interesting context. Definitely read content warnings though. It got really dark. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Incest, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual violence, and Grief

Moderate: Miscarriage

lucystyles's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

I think I must have skipped over the ‘trauma’ element in the blurb because this book ended up being a lot different to what I was expecting.

There are heavy themes throughout about sexual abuse and mother daughter relationships. I would say that these are the two main themes of the book, not really the affair.

I think the author wrote these themes really well and it really did leave me sucker punched at times, I feel like I really felt the weight of the characters. It also did a good job of portraying how these themes are prevalent in many women’s lives in one way or another, varying in severity.

Until the last paragraph this was probably more of a 4.75 for me but the ending was very vague. I think I know what happened but I’m not entirely sure, I guess it is open to interpretation, however I quite like to just be told what happened.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Incest, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Cancer

lisalax's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

kombaya's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape

Moderate: Cancer and Incest

bri0987's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Cancer, Death, Incest, Miscarriage, and Grief

chaos_and_chapters's review against another edition

dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Grief, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

Minor: Child death, Death, Incest, Terminal illness, and Death of parent

sazzzberry's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Cancer, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Grief, Stalking, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Infertility and Miscarriage

alisha247's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

this is one very difficult book to review for a few reasons. 

the first thing i really noticed about this novel was its writing. the author wrote some really beautiful sentences, especially those focusing on nature imagery, however there were also plenty of sentences that were either prose overkill or simply did not make sense. this, coupled with the incessant back and forth timelines, sometimes spanning years, did not help me follow these characters’ journeys. 

secondly, the triggering content. there was unnecessary amounts of graphic sexual abuse and emotional neglect of children. i understand the message the novel was trying to portray with this - how trauma can tremendously shape lives, but the imagery was not needed. 

furthermore, none of the characters were very likeable. they were very much one-dimensional to me. this made it difficult to empathise with any of their choices. for some characters, their distastefulness worked well in the story e.g. elle’s parents, her stepparents etc. but for others, readers almost needed to be won over for the story to excel e.g. i certainly felt that peter was bland and his only character traits were being english and vulgar; jonas was presented as a total sweetheart as a child but as an adult, there was no charisma. 

and then the ending. i don’t usually mind ambiguous endings, but this left too many loose ends in its wake!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Incest, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, and Sexual content

angelasunshine's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Incest, Infidelity, and Sexual assault