Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Das begabte Kind by Juno Dawson

48 reviews

danajoy's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Violence, Toxic friendship, and Transphobia

Moderate: Death, War, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Infidelity, and Grief

jhbandcats's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Bullying, Classism, Mental illness, Murder, Outing, Racism, Blood, Abandonment, Death, Gore, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Transphobia, and Grief

itsy719's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal death, Child abuse, Outing, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Sexism, Violence, Car accident, Transphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Homophobia, Vomit, and Body shaming

queerreaderchaos's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Murder, Misogyny, Racism, Death, Homophobia, Grief, and Child abuse

shae_purcell's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Medical content, Death, Child abuse, Sexual content, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Outing, Transphobia, Animal cruelty, Blood, and Animal death

Moderate: Murder, Misogyny, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Lesbophobia, Eating disorder, Incest, Islamophobia, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicide, Classism, Homophobia, Self harm, Drug use, Alcohol, Colonisation, Torture, Racism, Sexual harassment, Emotional abuse, and War

There is a lot of intentional misgendering in the chapters told from the

anti-trans character's

POV.

flashandoutbreak's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, Transphobia, Violence, Dysphoria, Murder, Mass/school shootings, Abandonment, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Death, War, and Outing

minervacerridwen's review against another edition

dark mysterious relaxing tense fast-paced

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

3.75

I enjoyed this book in the way that I enjoy a good action movie: there were lots of exciting and tense moments, good dialogue and good visuals. This helped to make this into a quick read that made me feel a lot of emotions, if only fleetingly. If it were made into a movie, it might be one I'd love to watch: a mix of almost silly James Bond action with the old magic world many people of my generation grew up in but had to leave behind due to its issues - with a good dose of queerness and some racial awareness added in.
The metaphors, painfully relevant to our current society and the rising transphobia in the UK, were delightfully unsubtle. However, sadly, the book seemed to come with its own set of issues. I was puzzled by how a book that's rooted so firmly in the theme of inclusion apparently still views being non-binary as something weird and "difficult to get right", without that ever coming back to bite any of the characters. And then there was the ending...

Major spoiler here, in case you're someone who clicks open spoiler tags automatically: I hope it will be addressed in book 2, but I really didn't like how the "solution" was to give Helena the death penalty, for no other reason than that that was "how things were done". I'm pretty sure (or at least hope) it will have consequences for what follows in book 2, but now it seemed to be treated very lightly. The final chapters felt very rushed and more like bait to draw you into the second book than like a proper ending to the first book. The very final event, however, intrigued me enough that I will have to admit that this baiting technique probably worked on me.

Please mind the content warnings.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Car accident, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Cursing, Hate crime, War, and Racism

kynajayne's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? Yes

4.0

I did enjoy this, the magic system and social justice themes were well executed. I look forward to reading more of the world.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Death, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Sexual content and Confinement

Minor: Homophobia

fronk10's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? Yes

3.5

I’m not sure if it’s just because the other books I’ve read this year were so wonderful, but this was really missing something for me. I loved the world building and thought all the witchy-ness was excellent. I adored the characters, and will always support such a brilliant example of queer joy. But there was nothing that grasped me and made me excited. A good book, and I would recommend, but perhaps just not for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury and Transphobia

eve81's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Transphobia, Deadnaming, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Racism