Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Il risveglio by J.R. Ward

19 reviews

novellearts's review against another edition

1.0

Honestly I feel like I read a different book than everyone else here. This got rated so highly and I just didn’t care for it at all. The alpha male qualities of this book had me cringing and rolling my eyes. The names Wrath, Phury, and Rhage just felt so juvenile. The insanely unrealistic sex scenes drove me insane. Everyone was constantly having an orgasm and over the smallest things! This story felt to me like a teenage boy wrote it. I was truly surprised to realize it was a woman author.

Oh, and can’t forget to mention the casual transphobia in this book! It came out of nowhere and was so incredibly unnecessary. That’s where this story started going downhill for me. Once an author uses their story to unnecessarily start hating on a group of people, I lose interest and respect.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Rape and Transphobia

alejandra_guerrero's review against another edition

fast-paced

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

5.0

 I really liked it. Some chapters felt a bit unnecessary, though. The action is good, and the spice is well written. There’s a good balance between romance and plot, and I’m looking forward to reading about the rest of the brothers, who are giving me Backstreet Boys vibes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Misogyny, Rape, Torture, Police brutality, Murder, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

jdz16's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

2.5

I remember reading this years ago and remember the world building. It isn't as good as I remember. The only reason I am continuing the series is in the hope that book 1 is the weakest in the series and it gets better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny

Moderate: Kidnapping

wondawilson's review against another edition

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Sexism

witcheep's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

I've first read this book about ten years ago (and it was written almost 20 years ago!), and on this reread the story was as captivating as I remembered. Nowadays it might be put into the spicy romantacy genre, and as such it fits multiple popular tropes (e. g. mates, touch-her-and-die) and feels delightfully multidimensional and fresh: the FMC isn't a helpless damsel in distress even though she is introduced to a whole new world of vampires and needs guidance.

The worldbuilding is interesting and the plethora of characters is well-rounded with interesting multidimensional personalities. Especially disability is written very respectfully as a normal part of the characters' lives into the plot. I think I'll reread the series further soon.

It is worth mentioning, though, that some of the wordings and mindsets especially around lgbtq+ community (

brief mentions/slurs in dialoque

) and women's standing in the society (both in human and vampire ones; women characters are either

innocent as virgins, mothers/spouses or whores

) feels very prejudiced and condemnatory at times.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Misogyny, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, and Alcohol

Minor: Drug use, Gun violence, Self harm, Slavery, Torture, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism

rachelgreenreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

This was really high quality garbage. Like, it was very cheesy and trashy but the writing was good and the story was well done. There were some things that should have been very cringey, but it went past cringe and into camp, so those bits were actually hilarious. 

But I thought the relationship between the MCs developed well, there was some good hurt/comfort, and the disability representation was surprisingly well done. 

I hated Butch tbh, but maybe I was supposed to? I’ve heard he develops throughout the series. Overall very enjoyable read, but would only recommend to friends tolerant of the cringe/ generally some offensive stuff that just didn’t age well. 

Ps. There’s a lot of sexual assault threat/ attempts floating throughout the book. None from close characters, but still enough to give someone the ick for sure. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexism, Police brutality, Medical content, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Torture and Pregnancy

There’s a lot of sexual assault threat/ attempts floating throughout the book. None from close characters, but still enough to give someone the ick for sure. There’s also a lot of misogyny and chauvinism

mostly by Butch, but the way most of the vamps talk about women is not great

. There is also a lot of whorephobia and violence against sex workers in the book.

by the villain(s) but also one of the inner circle, Zsadist, though his actions are not confirmed.

writing_apprentice's review against another edition

I DNF’d this. It really wasn’t my cup of tea. Aside from the silly names of the people in the brotherhood, the constant jumping of perspectives (some to people that I honestly don’t know how relevant they’ll be later on) and the main villain just squicking me out completely it wasn’t for me. It’s got some 2000s underlying misogyny vibes to which is a product of its time but it made me uncomfortable. Not bad, just really not my vibe.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Minor: Misogyny

elwyn_k's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Moderate: Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual violence, Police brutality, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Drug use

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

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

2.0

I don't really know what to say about this book.  It's the first one I managed to pick up and finish in a while so it had that going for it but part of that might have been that I wanted to see where the trainwreck go.

So many things were conveniently coincidental.  It was full of tropes that I hate, like fridging, dubious consent, insta-lust/love, etc...

The take on vampires was different I suppose but the secret society based enemy was decidedly wacky.  Will not be continuing the series.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infertility, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

emmablue's review against another edition

3.0

the hottest line:

“I’m going to shoot you.”
“Fine with me. I like bullet wounds.”

the most ridiculous line:

Why couldn’t she have been named Mary. Or Sue.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, Homophobia, Misogyny, Transphobia, Police brutality, Death of parent, and Murder