Reviews tagging 'Cultural appropriation'

Crier's War by Nina Varela

8 reviews

jessld95's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

I really loved this book and am so excited to read the sequel!! The characters were interesting and deep, and I enjoyed the complex nature of the situation everyone is in. I do feel as though some things developed very quickly and would have liked to see them explored more deeply, but that’s very minor! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Slavery, Death of parent, Abandonment, Colonisation, and Classism

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Grief, Cultural appropriation, and Gaslighting

jokehelldo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I need more violence and gore for it to be perfect. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality

Moderate: Xenophobia and Death of parent

Minor: Cultural appropriation

some_random_person_hi's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.75

 This book:

-made me so emotional that I screamed out loud at one point and cried during the end of the Acknowledgements

-was a learning experience that I personally should not read something without spoilers

-was a pageturner

-has a very exciting ending 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Racism, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Moderate: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and War

strange_little_ranger's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

cemeterygay's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

I adored this book. It hit all of the right tropes for me. I mean person and machine falling in love. Exploring the boundaries of humanity and the consequences of war and oppression, I adore it. Both Crier and Ayla are great protagonists and I adored reading both of their POVs, I just wish the supporting cast was a bit more memorable. I think the world for the most part was quite understandable, but the initial timeline was a bit hard to wrap your head around. 

I also loved that we got a Sapphic romance that wasn't solely focused on coming out. I also really enjoyed the writing style of this book and I found the ending cliffhanger to be quite effective. While quite a few twists were predictable, the reveals were still quite satisfying and it wasn't necessarily a let down that they weren't revolutionary.

I was very concerned that this was going to be a yet another book where a person in a position of privilege only begins to care about oppression because they think a person that is oppressed is cute, but that was not what this was. It is very clear from the onset that Crier has severe doubts about the treatment of humans and from the get go wants to help improve the lives of humans separate to her relationship with Ayla.

I really liked this book but I will say it's nothing that revolutionary. I would recommend this book but it's not like you have to read it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Infertility, Misogyny, Xenophobia, and Grief

Moderate: Cultural appropriation and War

Cultural Appropriation is of fictional cultures. Discussions of infertility refer to past figures and not main characters but is still discussed in depth.

starccato's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, and Colonisation

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Confinement, Infertility, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, and Alcohol

k_aro's review against another edition

hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

It was good.... I definitely enjoyed the slow burn enemies to lovers, but I'm not sure if, as a whole, it'll be particularly memorable for me. Like, it was good, but not life-changingly good.

Crier and Ayla are... good? Characters? I'm definitely not categorically opposed to them but I don't think they're particularly compelling in and of themselves, they seem kind of standard.

It was pretty gripping, though. It took me a little bit to get into it but it was definitely exciting after that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Misogyny, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Police brutality, Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, and War

Minor: Infertility, Self harm, Death of parent, and Alcohol

It's sort of hard to talk about the more social aspects of this book, given that it's between a fictional race and a real one, so when I say "cultural appropriation" I'm unsure whether it would realistically affect someone, given that it is largely the king appropriating human culture (such as, marital traditions).

morganish's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Crier's War started off a little slow for me, BUT. The book very quickly overcame my doubts, and I found myself really looking forward to picking it back up every night! It's fantasy of the YA variety, which doesn't deviate too much from a lot of the themes, stylistic choices, and characterization of other YA stories.

Yet even as I've been leaning away from YA fantasy and more toward adult recently, I found myself really absorbed in this one. The prose was straightforward, but sometimes unexpectedly beautiful; the worldbuilding wasn't dense or complicated, and yet the central conceit works well and there's a surprising amount of effective mystery. All the untold secrets yet to be discovered ultimately worked to hook me in. The romance is a kind I like but don't often find executed this effectively: angst-heavy, with lots of pining. It's a true slow burn, with outstanding threads still left hanging by the end of this installment, the first of a duology. Even though I'd heard others say this book was really good, AND even though I was excited by the idea of AI creations in a traditional fantasy setting, I was still surprised how good Crier's War was.

If you like your slow-burn romances to actually feel like something slow and aching and epic, this book probably has what you're looking for. (Especially if you're looking for more sapphic fantasy.) If you like the feel of YA fantasy stories, but sometimes wish the worldbuilding had just a little bit more mystery or intrigue like adult fantasy, this might serve, depending on your tastes.  But if you're just completely done with YA fantasy and all the aspects that come with it, or don't like romances that build across multiple books, OR don't like the enemies-to-lovers trope, this book probably won't do much for you. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Confinement, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and War

Minor: Genocide, Sexism, Cultural appropriation, and Alcohol

A lot of the elements I include about the content warnings are specifically fantastical, like fantastical xenophobia. Most of the other content warnings have some level of fantastic to them as well. It isn't a direct reference to IRL events and doesn't include IRL bigotry, for example.