Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Uma Melodia de Sombras e Ruínas by Roseanne A. Brown

21 reviews

annorabrady's review against another edition

challenging dark tense 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? Yes

3.0

Karina's story and narration are both engaging and worth reading. Malik's, though, is hard to enjoy. I like the way that his struggles with anxiety are handled. But I struggle with connecting to his story enough to want to hear his POV. And his POV made the romance between him and Karina impossible to care about.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Gaslighting, Murder, Animal cruelty, Child death, Classism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, Racial slurs, and Mental illness

Moderate: Vomit

Minor: Police brutality, Trafficking, and Slavery

anni_swanilda's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Animal cruelty, Gaslighting, Blood, Classism, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Gore, Murder, Animal death, Suicide attempt, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Vomit, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Self harm

Minor: Sexual content, Child death, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Physical abuse, War, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, and Slavery

ruthiedr89's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Racism, Murder, Toxic relationship, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Classism, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, and Racial slurs

Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

onlyci's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Self harm, Fire/Fire injury, and Racism

beldaran1224's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-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

4.5

If you're looking for the best of YA, this is it. The setting is very rich, heavily rooted in African mythology and history - I noticed heavy inspiration from Egypt and Morocco, while there are likely inspirations I'm not as familiar with that I missed!

The book follows two POVs. There's a lot of depth and development there, and the themes and tropes involve a number of heavy and important topics. Expect to think about mental health, colonialism and more.

The moment I finished this book, I immediately put the second book on hold at my library.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Self harm, Death of parent, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Racism, Mental illness, and Colonisation

Minor: Abandonment, Classism, and Cultural appropriation

socialpsysteph's review against another edition

adventurous 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

3.0

This book sounded super intriguing, the cover is BEAUTIFUL, and I love the setting/world so I was excited to see if this could live up to my own hype. Unfortunately, it fell a little short. Most of the plot was super predictable, which made it a little boring at times. There were also scenes that just didn't make sense, characters were able to move or do things that just wouldn't be possible but it was needed for the story so it happened. I also noticed several grammatical/spelling errors throughout which really irked me. The redeeming feature of this book is that the magic system and culture are really interesting and that was what kept me from DNFing the thing. I most likely won't be continuing the series unless I see some stellar reviews for book two.

This book counts for r/Fantasy Bingo 2022 for a book set in Africa, for Popsugar 2022 for a book set in a nonpatriarchal society, and for the Magical Readathon 2022 Autumnal Equinox for an O (Foundations in Necromancy) for Conjuration for a book with necromancy themes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Racism, Kidnapping, and Violence

strawberrytheauthor's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense 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

5.0

This book was so good! There were wonderful tropes I love and also magic and mythology I hadn’t heard before. I love fantasy stories that include mythology based off of places on Earth. This was based of West and North African Folktales.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Colonisation, Death, Xenophobia, Vomit, Violence, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Animal death, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Racism

Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Self harm, Slavery, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Sexual content

internationalreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Death of parent, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Racism, Murder, Alcohol, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Classism, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

emmjay's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

I enjoyed the uniqueness of the world and the elements of African folklore woven throughout. Despite the complexity of the world building it was still relatively easy to follow. I enjoyed our hunger games-esque romance and our two main characters. Both are flawed but likeable.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Death, Blood, and Racism

corriejn's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

4.25

First two thirds or so of this book were great: skilled worldbuilding, introduction of characters and storylines that were destined to clash. However, things fall a part a bit when the author actually gets to resolving how those various storylines interact and resolve. Brown seems to want to be N. K. Jemisin, but falls short. Too many flat, undeveloped characters who pop in to be major parts of the narrative, too many twists and turns that aren't foreshadowed or a logical part of the story, but just tossed in and basically rewrite the worldbuilding and characters that were more skillfully introduced earlier. I don't plan to read the rest of this series. It started off really promising through most of this volume, but ended up a jumbled mess.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Classism, Death, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Death of parent, Grief, Kidnapping, Racism, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Child abuse, Alcohol, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, and Physical abuse

Minor: Cannibalism, War, and Torture