Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Das begabte Kind by Juno Dawson

25 reviews

jhbandcats's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.0

The book opens the night before five young girls officially become witches. The story then jumps and follows these same characters now that they’ve matured into their more powerful and responsible lives. 

The author does a great job at showing the different personalities, not so easy when there are a lot of characters. The women are no longer close like in childhood; there’s friction between the power-hungry head of England’s coven, the mild witch who pretends to be a simple housewife, the Black lesbian who started her own LGBTQ-friendly coven, and the veterinarian consumed with grief at the loss of her fiancé during the witch war eight years ago. There are spouses and lovers and children and parents and, new to the group, a trans orphan who’s terrified and lashing out in fear. The story is told from four points of view and the voices are distinct. 

I read reviews where the readers felt the race and gender issues overshadowed the story. I thought the author raised really important points relevant to current racism, homophobia, and transphobia. The transphobia was heavy-handed but it seemed realistic given what I read online. 

I liked it enough where I’m about to start the second in the series. I want to see what happens to these people. 

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shae_purcell's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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? Yes

3.75

I didn't like this book as much as I thought I might. I enjoyed the multi-POV chapters and the diverse representation. I liked a lot of the characters and relationships. I don't know what it is. It fell a little flat for me, like the characters could have been fleshed out more maybe.

A word of warning: Don't go into this expecting a tidy ending. It ends on a huge cliffhanger. I was ready to start the second book until I was halfway through that last chapter. Now I'm really irritated and thinking about taking a break. I'm sure as an author you want readers to be so excited for the next book that they'll run out and pick up a copy immediately. This ending didn't make me excited for the next book. It makes me dread reading it, even though I still kind of want to hang out with the characters a bit more. I may pick it up eventually but I'll feel sour about it.

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batbaby's review against another edition

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

3.5

The beginning of the book felt like an introduction of too many characters too quickly that I didn’t know who was who. But then characters started to grow on me. I’m not sure what the intended age demographic is it is written like a ya but the main characters are very much millennial + three 15/16 year olds. I know it is intended to be an allegory for transphobic policies and terms in the uk but the misgendering of a character both intentional and through adjustment to their transition just made me cringe a little. I did like the different magic types though and would’ve enjoyed hearing more about what each witch type was capable of
 Minor spoiler

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3/4 way through I was sure I wouldn’t read the sequel but then when the action finally begins and the last chapter!! Maybe I will 🤔

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hotwaterbottle's review against another edition

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

3.5

A modern fantasy novel focused on exploring the fault lines in contemporary feminism. Wondering how a magical matriarchy might address (or not) their duty towards non-white, non-straight, and non-cis witches? Want to reflect on how childhood friendships develop as you age? Looking for more Spice Girls references? This book has it covered. 

Steady pace until the last quarter, which absolutely ripped along. Some developments felt like they were  teased too early, or picked up and put down a few times before they were realized. I'm guessing the ending is a bit controversial
—that tends to happen, when you kill off (!?) a main character as the credits roll.
Definitely book one of a series—you've been warned!

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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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

2.0

On one hand, I feel like the main message of this book is important and I'm glad its been so successful. But I bounced off of the extremely causal prose hard, and it was difficult to read so much misogyny directed at women by other women (please stop calling each other cunts holy shit!) 

(I am also very tired of books that go "covid happened but we used magic to make it go away" ugh! And blaming the anti-vax movement on warlocks is so distasteful.)

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shottel's review against another edition

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

3.0

Shock ending that does great damage to the rest of the book. Stop reading after page 417. Cut it off exactly at that page and I’d bump it up a star. 

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scruffygirlvix's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.75


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kayleighoneillonwheels's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5


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reb_curt's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

4.0


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maddox22's review against another edition

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challenging emotional 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? Yes

3.0


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