Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Outlawed by Anna North

10 reviews

louiseelizabeth's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective 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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infertility, Mental illness, Misogyny, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Incest, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexism, Sexual violence, Medical content, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Child abuse

rachealcroucher's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Infertility, and Sexism

Moderate: Animal death, Body shaming, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Classism

lovejasmine's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

2.0

The biggest problem with this book is that it could have been so much better than it was. It could have been so inclusive and intersectional and diverse, and could have been a beautiful, in depth story of marginalised people coming together in a world that hates them.

Instead, we got the barest hint of that, with a very self centred, very white narrator that was, honestly, kind of boring.

The worst thing about this book was it wasn't bad. It just could have been incredible.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Abortion, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Outing, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

sbaryluk's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Sexism, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and Pandemic/Epidemic

hmatt's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I love the concept of this story so much, and it had so much potential. The world-building is super well done, and I love alternate histories. Unfortunately, I came away with the feeling that the author tried to fit so much world and plot in that these got in the way of both the actual storytelling and the character-building.

Storytelling
I feel like the author was trying to fit too many events into too short of a narrative. This might have been okay, but there were so many minor events that I think we should have spent less time on, and a number of climactic events that we spent barely any time on whatsoever. A lot of these major events "fade to black" as soon as the action starts, and then we are caught up on what happened in retrospect later on - I was REALLY not a fan of this technique, and I don't think it made sense for the "western" genre.

Character-building
We do get a lot of information on most of the characters but, again, it's almost too much for how short of a book it is. What we lose out on, in my opinion, is a more profound emotional connection with the main character. We don't really dwell on her losses or feel them with her, which is extra strange given the whole novel is told in first-person.

TL;DR
The idea behind the novel is fantastic, but it tries to fit too much in. The concepts it seeks to explore are really only half-fleshed-out and the characters are hard to relate to, simply because the plot moves on too fast to hold space for these introspections.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Animal death and Drug abuse

CWs non-exhaustive

abookandaspotoftea's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

2.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Self harm, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and Lesbophobia

nothingforpomegranted's review against another edition

2.25

Ostensibly set in a mostly-dystopian 1894 Texas town that places a premium on women's ability to bear children and suspects infertile women of witchcraft, this book is narrated by Ada, a seventeen-year-old wife and midwife's apprentice who has been exiled from her community after a year of marriage with no child. Passionate about science and serving women, Ada finds herself in the company of the Hole in the Wall gang, a group of outlawed outsiders with a flexible and fluid approach to gender, love, sex, and justice. 

This feminist take on a Western novel, filled with crime, adventure, and challenging authority, was certainly creative, but I was quite the right audience for it. Indeed, I was so distracted by the references to race, doctors, baby Jesus, the Flu and Fever, and the seeming dissolution of the United States that I was almost more focused on trying to figure out whether this was a dystopian alternative history (a Confederate win in the Civil War?) or a dystopian future (post COVID-19?), and I'm honestly still confused. 

I also was pretty confused by the role of religion and by all of the characters. There were many, each with a painful background, but none was particularly well-developed, and the sub-plots detracted rather than added to the story. The one exception to this, in my opinion, was Lark's story, which surprised and intrigued me, but he, too, was an underdeveloped character who stuck around too briefly. 

I appreciate the reviewer who acknowledged that this book offers a different take on the Hole in the Wall gang. I had no idea that this gang was a real concept and really disappointed that there was no Author's Note explaining that research and that choice (which guess means this is an alt-history novel?). 

I picked this up because I needed a quick read to help propel me out of a slump (too many classics in a row/at a time can do that to you), and it was definitely successful in that respect. The story was engaging enough and kept me turning the pages for the few hours that this took to finish, but ultimately, I think Anna North bit off more than she could chew--infertility, religion, feminism, justice, gender fluidity, insomnia, mental health, medicine, mothering, Western adventure--and it really didn't work for me. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual content, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Religious bigotry, and Abortion

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Incest, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy

dotoridoritou's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Blood, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Mental illness, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, and Murder

naturemamareads's review against another edition

informative reflective slow-paced

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

2.0

Yeah.... this just isn’t the action packed queer adventure everyone is screaming about. The characters are ambiguously queer until more than half way through. It’s not bold. It’s not some new feminist manifesto. Just another white feminist book leaving out so many people. It was okay.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infertility, Miscarriage, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Religious bigotry, Abortion, and Murder

hollyenchanted's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Abortion, and Murder

The world North created is brutal and all-to-recognizable. Which makes the outlaws all the more heroic and interesting.