Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

23 reviews

saliwali's review

adventurous dark mysterious reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Emotional abuse, Blood, Child abuse, Death, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Addiction, Bullying, Drug abuse, and Gaslighting

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Vomit, Body horror, Bullying, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Grief, Sexism, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Cursing, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Chronic illness, and Emotional abuse

notapenguin's review

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Emotional abuse, and Confinement

Moderate: Death, Racism, Slavery, and Child abuse

Minor: Body horror, Blood, Death of parent, and Abandonment

alyxbeau's review against another edition

fast-paced

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

2.5

Let me start off by saying reading something from another new culture to me (this book is Ethiopian inspired) is wonderful. I love how often I am coming across new cultures in books and being able to learn little snippets of information. However, this book started off with a really exciting idea and then fell completely flat by the end. The premise of cleansing a house of monsters was set up very well-spooky, mysterious. As soon as Magnus, the love interest was introduced, the focus shifted entirely and we saw little to no attempts at cleansing the house that worked, it all happened off page. I did not find the back and forth with immediate caving in after saying she cant be with him any fun at all, it was not a dynamic I appreciated. I had a large problem with the overuse of her one gimmick - the idea of good and bad "survival habits." The first mention was quirky and I thought it was cute. But it was constantly being brought up as a reason for every action she made. It didn't need to be. I genuinely had some issues with how the main character acted most of the time, though possibly realistic based on her age and her upbringing. Speaking of which, do not get me started on Jember. What an abusive horrible man in so many ways. There was constant mention of the way he abused or hurt Andromeda, yet when Andromeda would mention it to Magnus and see how horrified he was she would yell at HIM. Telling him he had no right to be mad at Jember. WHO WOULDNT BE? YOU ARE MAD AT JEMBER. WHY CANT HE BE MAD TOO? WHY DO ONLY YOU HAVE THE RIGHT? Magnus cared about Andromeda, so he was mad at the man who treated her so poorly while he raised a child with no love. He can be mad. Jember was a walking contradiction as well. By the end of the book we see him playing a game that requires touch and we KNOW he cant stand to touch people, Andromeda mentions it every time she thinks about Jember. And its a game that requires A LOT of touch that he used to play with Andromeda too when she was little to pass time. And 

what the hell was up with it being revealed he straight up kidnapped her as a kid? What the actual F***

Anyway I started off really excited and wound up disliking this book quite a bit. I did not see how this was inspired by Jane Eyre, but that didnt bother me at all as I didn't go into the book knowing that was part of its goal. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Body horror

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

Minor: Slavery

toffishay's review

dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

I loved the romance! Love Andromeda and love Magnus! Which is great because their romance is the biggest chunk of the plot, even more than the fantasy so if you don't buy into that then the rest of the book doesn't work. The fantasy elements were fine to me, they kind of fit that zone of generic YA fantasy. I like the haunted house aspect, which is a more interesting kind of story to me than other YA stories that would be more adventure based. It makes the story lean more Gothic, which makes sense because this is a Jane Eyre inspired story. The pacing is annoying and honestly, I didn't really care about the fantasy parts like all the fighting. I predicted some of the end, but that may be a reality of a retelling as well. The relationship between Jember and Andromeda was interesting too and <SPOILER> I liked that there were no easy answers with that one. <END SPOILER> The horror elements are well-done though, like I was really creeped out. Overall, a nice YA story that I could actually revisit again because I loved the romance!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, Blood, Gore, Violence, Death, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, and Body horror

Minor: Sexism, Racism, Trafficking, Infidelity, Gun violence, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Murder, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, and Fire/Fire injury

madamenovelist's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Violence, Murder, Mental illness, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Addiction, Abandonment, Blood, Gore, Grief, and Confinement

Minor: Trafficking

There is a brief mention of a child being rescued from sex trafficking. The emotional/physical abuse, blood, gore, and violence are all very graphic. Not for the sensitive.

erandle's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Death, and Body horror

Moderate: Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Colonisation, Death of parent, Suicide, Addiction, and Bullying

onemamareads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense 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

4.75

Read my full review here: https://onemamassummer.weebly.com/book-reviews/within-these-wicked-walls

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Blood, Murder, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

syllareads's review

dark mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

3.5

I wanted to love this book very badly, and I did - parts of it at least.

First of all, the reason this book caught my attention in the first place was because it's absolutely stunning. The cover is beautiful! I'm delighted Lauren Blackwood got to create such a visually stunning book, she deserves it - and I hope more people pick it up purely because the cover makes them curious enough to, and they actually fall in love with this.
I have not yet read Jane Eyre (this book definitely makes me want to remedy that, though) so I can't speak on how well Within these Wicked Walls works as a reimagining (or as a book that has at least drawn inspiration from Jane Eyre). I can say that Lauren Blackwood tries to capture the allusive nature of gothic novels and succeeds for the most part - a lot of her descriptions, as well as the desperate yearning between Andromeda, our MC, and Magnus, her Love Interest, were beautifully done.

However.
The book being YA.... really ruined it for me in the end. Many scenes in between beautiful, desperate moments of longing and despair read incredibly juvenile and pulled me out of the story almost by force. The characters smirk and grin at each other in between sentences of agony and loss and heartbreak. The dialogues go from impossibly tender to teenage ribbing in an instant. Every time I thought I was feeling it, I got forcefully pulled back out of it by some character being a teenaged ass again, and after a while this back and forth made it incredibly hard for me to care properly for any of the characters involved.

Overall: this is not a bad book, and I recommend people at least try. The setting is stunning! I'm so happy BIPOC authors get to retell stories however they wish, with whatever culture they belong to because yes, the canon is incredibly white and every book changing that is a good book for that alone. Personally, the "YA-ness" in between the gothic novel aspects really pulled me out of it and I couldn't get a lot of personal enjoyment out of the book, which makes me very upset :c

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Blood

Minor: Death, Death of parent, and Trafficking

frantically's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

2.75

kinda weird but i still liked it well enough.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Chronic illness, Death, and Abandonment

Moderate: Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, and Classism

Minor: Trafficking and Grief