Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Diviners by Libba Bray

24 reviews

hanxiety's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.0

This book was pretty epic. Sweeping historical fantasy mystery with an interesting premise. Very strong sense of setting and place. A LOT of characters, some of them more developed and with more page time than others. Definitely feels like it’s building up to something and I’m very excited to read the next one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Rape, Racism, Abortion, and Body horror

leastsquares's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Rape, Suicide, and Racism

Minor: Abortion and War

jasmine256's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Racism, and Rape

Minor: Animal death and Abortion

lyricallit's review against another edition

slow-paced

2.0

I have come to the unfortunate conclusion I am not Bray's audience. The historical fiction -meets-dark-fantasy premises intrigue, but the execution doesn't work for me. The pacing drags and the period slang comes across as a little tryhard.  I listened to over 40% before I felt genuinely engaged by the plot and eager to read on. But then even after the conflict wrapped, the ending drew out an extended, anticlimactic finish.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Racism, and Rape

Minor: Abortion and Slavery

dsarbear's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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

The book had me on the edge of my seat despite that fact that

Spoiler

the book tells you who the killer is pretty much on page one

. Mysterious and suspenseful. There's some side-plot romances but they don't overshadow the main plot. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

Moderate: Physical abuse and Racism

Minor: Rape, War, and Abortion

glens's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Racial slurs, Racism, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Grief, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, and Medical content

Minor: Abortion, Antisemitism, Death, Vomit, Animal death, and Rape

comraderowan94's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism and Racism

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Animal cruelty

ellanarose's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

5.0

Started off more focused on world and character building, but once the plot began this really livened up. Excellent book

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence

r1dh4's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

For the time that I read The Diviners, I was almost completely transported into its world. The setting really came off the page for me, and I really enjoyed the author's writing style. I will say that Libba Bray seems to really like long-winded descriptions and discussions; however, I did not find it boring here and instead thought it was important in order to fully visualize the world she is trying to show. That being said, I feel like it's important to know this and have the right mindset going in, because I definitely wouldn't have been able to read this so quickly or deeply had I read it earlier last year since I wouldn't have had enough focus at the time.

The characters were also all really well-developed in my opinion. Even minor characters that did not show up for very long felt like real people. At times it did feel like there was just a lot of information on the character's backstory coming in at once, but considering the rest of Bray's writing style it didn't feel that out of place to me and it didn't hinder my enjoyment of the book at all.

Additionally, the plot doesn't really pick up speed until about halfway through the book. However, even though the plot started a bit later, I still enjoyed the beginning because it provided some good exposition and allowed the reader to become familiar with the characters and their motives/personalities. When the plot actually does get underway, I found myself really wanting to know what happened next. Not only does the book feel rightly creepy, but there's a lot of movement between places and characters that was handled well and prevented me from feeling bored.

Along with this, the story itself also felt really well-crafted; you could tell the author had taken a long time to research and write this book, and you could see the carefully laid threads that allowed this book to finish completely while still leaving some great material for the next few books. The only thing I didn't like about this book was the romances; each felt either forced or too fast. I feel like some extra development would help this out, which I'm looking forward to seeing in the next few books.

Honestly, since I've heard that the subsequent books are better than the first, I definitely will be reading the next few, and I'm looking forward to continuing the series! I would also recommend this book to anybody, as long as they feel up to the longer page length and have checked out the content warnings (because there are quite a few). Overall, a great book to start off 2022!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, and Sexism

Minor: Sexual assault

davidrb's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny slow-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? Yes

3.0

Just Okay. I think I'm just never gonna get into a YA fantasy, but the setting and lore both appealed to me! I'll probably continue the series, seeing as some characters (namely Memphis, Henry, and Sam!?) didn't have much of a presence in the story when it came to the main plot. (Poor Mabesie too!)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and War

This book is much more graphic than I was expecting, especially when it comes to the child death, sexual and domestic abuse, and animal death. Watch out!