Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Mercies

this story certainly expanded my awareness of Norwegian history and the impact of witch hunting there. I ranked it highly because the prose and pacing were quite nice, but I didn’t feel like the narrative brought out the full potential of these historical events. I’m bothered by how much the Sámi characters felt like background to contextualize the drama of the Norwegian characters. Despite the slow buildup the story seemed to conclude suddenly and predictably

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maddie_lewis28's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

OMG THAT ENDING. WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK. This book was so good and pulled out all the emotions, I loved it. My one critique is that I wish that some things had more explanation for what they are or like a “dictionary” at the front or back (this is mostly because I’m lazy and don’t like having to look stuff up on my phone when I’m going on my electronics to stay off my phone), but that’s just a personal preference. I didn’t know what to expect going into this, but I would definitely recommend.

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caelizha's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

un roman très bien écrit ! une plume wow, bonne trad je suppose, l'anglais était dur à lire j'ai switch en français et j'ai bu le livre vrm mdrbfld je voulais savoir la suite bien que le plot entier du livre est prévisible (et il a pas été écrit pour surprendre). jsp, ct dans les détails/scènes que je voulais savoir cmt ca allait se passait et j'ai été convaincue. je me suis attachée aux persos, que ce soit maren ou ursa, qui ont chacune des défauts dans leurs façons de penser et d'agir mais ca les rend très humaines j'ai kiffé !! gros coup de coeur pour ma femme kirsten épouse moi bien sur. ça m'a fait ressentir des émotions c'est sûr, mais rien qui m'a touchée au point de vrm me secouer de l'intérieur mm si bcp de quotes mémorables à noter !! le seul moment où je me sentais vrm MAL ct lors de la scène de viol ch 9, moi j'ai considéré ça comme un viol gt archi pas bien. mais évidemment les scènes procès + exécution ca mettait mal qd mm, juste j'étais + en colère et frustrée qu'autre chose (mais positivement, pck la faute n'est pas dans l'histoire mais aux HOMMES). ya tellement d'opinions qui clashent entre elles ct bien à voir. jspr diinna heureuse là où elle est avec erik...... elle a bien fait de fuir....... la fin très réaliste but only PAIN putain séparées pck maren pouvait pas rester avec ursa en sachant qu'ursa est enceinte oah vrm c terrible. en somme je me dis lecture cool mais j'ai pas vrm été marquée par le livre, fin ct bien mais voilà, rien à dire. les lesbiennes par contre 🫶🫶🫶 love them mm si ct giga triste leur relation

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contemporarymeepsie's review against another edition

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dark informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

The Mercies is a fictional retelling of the real life storm of 1617 off the coast of Vardo, Norway and the subsequent witch trials that followed in the years after. We follow the stories of Maren Magnusdatter, a young woman of Vardo who lost her father, brother and fiancé in the storm, and Ursula Cornet, the wife of the dreaded Commissioner Absalom Cornet who played a big part in Vardo's witch trials.
Initially I struggled to get in to this book. I think I didn't associate with Maren as a character and I found the writing style hard to get in to. Regularly having to reread sentences to understand their meaning. But once Ursa was introduced, I found a character I liked and gradually as the story picked up pace I lost myself in the plot. The friendship that blossomed between Ursa and Maren is so well described and thoroughly genuine that I couldn't not love this book by the end. Every choice each character makes feels real and believable for that character. Every character had a realistic fully formed personality. Kudos to Kiran Millwood Hargrave for her first adult novel as I believe it was a success, and although I struggled to begin with, I do believe it was worth pushing through and I'm excited to see what she writes next. This is a book I have already recommended to a friend.

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literati2000's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.75

truly a boring read that took me forever to finish. i was definitely misled as to what this book is really about, i.e. don’t read this if you want a cute little lesbian period piece. read this if you want a book on how dirty the 1600s are, witches, torture and murder, and two women who don’t meet until 32% of the way through and don’t kiss until the last 10%. overall a disappointing read

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hopeadinfinitum's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative tense fast-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

5.0

A difficult book that tears at your heart even as you can’t put it down. This book made me Feel Things with capital letters, angry and sad and hopeful and thoroughly gutted like a fish. There’s a lot of content warnings to take into account and they shouldn’t be taken lightly, but this book is so worth a read.

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jcinf's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

I should have read the content warnings before starting this, because I’m getting tired of reading about abuse toward women 🫠

That said, I did enjoy this book for the most part.

I’ll have to dock some points for the audiobook tax — aka: the times I forget to pay attention and listen. So take my star rating with a grain of salt.

I enjoyed reading about this time period and this particular historical event and culture. It’s something I knew nothing about, so I like that I got to be introduced to a new topic.

I also didn’t realize this would be LGBTQ+ because I started listening to this book on Libby and didn’t start tracking on StoryGraph until a little later. So that was a pleasant surprise for me when I found out it was queer.

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