Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - Il risveglio

Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Il risveglio by J.R. Ward

7 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.

Content Warnings

yuna's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.5

This was such a mixed bag. There's a lot I didn't like--it's so overbearingly mid-aughts and white and the sexism is off the charts even when it thinks it's not. (I stg, I get it, y'all listen to gangster rap to show how badass you are, ffs stop with all the rap references. And I'm not even going to start with the fuck-ton of 'sensei-ing' going on here.)

AND YET. I finished it. I've dnf'd books for far less. I think the story got in its own way too much trying to have All The Things With All The Backstory. It was apparent from the jump that there's a lot of worldbuilding going on beneath the surface. I liked most of the side characters and am curious to see what happens...but I'm not jumping into book 2 right away.

Content Warnings