Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

116 reviews

ska1224's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad 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

5.0

them 🤲

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Hate crime, Self harm, Violence, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and War

witcheep's review

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This book is a dark adventure of folktale-inspired worldbuilding that relies heavily on body horror laced into the magic system and cruel characters ruling over others. The body horror and brutality made me wince, the extent of them were too much for me. However, the book is also a tale of fragile hope building between Évike and Gáspár, the main characters with two very different world views learning to understand and support each other. Their deepening relationship and shifting worldviews were what kept me reading the book further.

"What would you have me do?" he asks. "You have already ruined me."

The worldbuilding showcases a colonizing worldview where the ruling religious group deems other religions, cultures, and ethnicities inferior and something that should be purged. The oppressor-religious group is content on using the other groups to their own benefit, though. They take the others' magic, lives, and even their folklore, but bend it so that it fits their own religious world view. This changing of stories takes the voice away from the original people, hiding them.

You can't hoard stories the way you hoard gold, despite what Virág would say. There's nothing to stop anyone from taking the bits they like, and changing or erasing the rest, [--]

The ruling people of the world do this even to their own kings: their legacy is carved in stone only after their death, when he kings themself won't be able to have a say in it anymore, so the living may decide what kind of kingdom they have left behind. Words have power, and the rulers are very strict with who gets a say in anything important. Hence, the cruelty of rendering other people voiceless extends to every level of the society, making power a fleeting thing instead of a lasting impression.

Reid brings up the topic of picking parts of someone else's folklore and rebuilding it to fit one's own needs multiple times. She seems to have a message that this kind of cultural appropriation is bad, but cannot be stopped. She flashes different possibilities of the groups either being forcefully assimilated into the ruling religious ways, staying separate and against each other, or finding a way to mix and coexist.

Maybe by doing so Reid wants to justify her own usage of source material and research for this book: Reid herself has clearly used this strategy of reusing stories while writing this book. She has combed through different mythologies, religious and cultural lore and histories, and uses them quite loosely as her material, combining them into her fantasy world and disregarding some parts or facts altogether. Reid uses at least jewish lore, Eastern European mythology, history and names, and Finnish national epic Kalevala. I was first intriqued by this, but the execution left me wanting a retelling more true to the elements of the original tales or an altogether more original lore to this fantasy world.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Bullying, Death, Torture, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, and Cultural appropriation

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

yikesav's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative inspiring reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Genocide, Gore, Racism, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Sexual content

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

slow-paced

2.5

I liked the fact this is a sort of reimagining?/interpretation of Jewish myth/folklore, but I didn't love the story overall. There were some good parts to it, but it didn't hold my interest like I was hoping for. 
Not sure if this author just isn't for me as this is my second book from them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Self harm, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual content

kellimalea's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

I think this is a great fantasy novel for someone who is interested in an adventurous story, but doesn't want to commit to a big series. I definitely think the story could have been fleshed out into multiple books, but it doesn't suffer from lack of content. The development of relationships between people would probably make more sense if it had been stretched out over multiple books, but I think it all still works well. I love that this story draws from Hungarian and Jewish folklore/history, as these aren't common sources for most American literature. I thought the world building was phenomenal. I would recommend this book, with the caveat that it is a dark and heavy read, so may not be everybody's cup of tea.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Torture, Violence, and Blood

Minor: Animal death, Death, Genocide, Racism, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, and Classism

moonchild_cos's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Vomit, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, and War

Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Torture, and Fire/Fire injury

c_dmckinney's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Infertility, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

immovabletype's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.25

man, i thought this was going to be a solid 4 stars for a good chunk of the novel, while we're following the two main characters on a quest of sorts. this is hate-to-love, and throughout their journey they're grappling with preconceptions about each other based on centuries of hatred and oppression between their people (the fantasy is very cleverly based on pagan, christian, and jewish mythology, with all the attendant real world conflicts--the author "has a degree in political science . . . focusing on religion and ethnonationalism" and her expertise shows). grappling while wanting to grapple each other, if you know what i mean. it makes for a very intimate narrative, slow-paced but propulsive . . . but then the journey ends, the world opens up, and our two lovers are separated. what was compelling me to keep reading just kind of dropped out of sight for a while and i found it harder to pick up as much as i had been, and even after they were reunited it never quite got that spark back for me. and then i loathed the epilogue.

idk. there were things that happened in the latter part of the book that i liked and i think were necessary to forward the narrative and themes. however. it just could've been done better. i will also say, this is sold as adult fantasy. i would argue it feels a lot more ya. the heroine is almost a classic ya heroine, the tropes are very ya tropes. these aren't necessarily bad things, but that's not gonna work for everyone, so i wanted to make a note of it.

i did enjoy this for the most part, i'm glad i read it because now i know that ava reid is gonna knock it out of the park for me someday (this was a debut). i'm quite looking forward to reading more from her.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Genocide, Sexual content, and Death of parent

Minor: War

Genocide is

a constant threat, but no genocide actually occurs.

triley's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Racism, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

Minor: Physical abuse, Vomit, and Grief

chrispybacon's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-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

The book had a strong premise but poor execution. I was excited to have a heroine in her mid-twenties but Evike is so dumb I could not relate to her at all. None of her relationships are healthy - the Yehuli want her to convert (they also help her but they are very interested in her joining them), her love interest is a coward and also her jailer, her whole village physically and verbally abused her. Her life was shit and I would have left all of them in the dirt. It makes zero sense to return to her abusers. 
The plot is a lot of walking, being horny, being angry, being horny, plans backfiring, suffering deadly injuries but surviving them, more being horny and more walking. Somewhere in there were aspects of accepting yourself, growing into your powers (and loosing them), and conflicts about religions and cultures clashing which suffered greatly under all the rest. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism