Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

3 reviews

mmirjamm's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Medical content, Infidelity, Grief, Sexual content, Death, Rape, Gore, Body horror, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

planetaery's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I have mixed feelings about both this and Wicked, but mostly it left a lot of things unresolved which was really weird. It answered one main point and then you never found out what happened with anything else.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pregnancy

Minor: Sexual assault

For the sexual assault,

it's a very brief section where I didn't even notice what happened at first until they mention it later on in the book, but Liir is in a coma and Candle tries to save him from dying by "warming him up" - it worked but it made me feel really weird about it, and Liir didn't seem particularly upset but kept trying to deny that it happened since the idea of it was more ridiculous than if she'd got pregnant from someone else.

jourdanicus's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

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

Wicked turned me into a huge fan of Gregory Maguire, and this sequel has solidified that. His writing style and tone certainly had to grow on me over time but when it did, it REALLY did. I found this book to be thoughtful, intelligent, and even funny at times. Maguire has such a unique writing style, with some obscure vocabulary, but I like a book that makes me have to look up some words here and there.

Liir's development was the central focus of this story. The plot mostly existed to further his development, but I love character-driven writing so that works for me.

I also wanna say this series so far kinda gives off Chronicles of Narnia vibes but like if the characters never had innocence in the first place, and for readers who don't mind blasphemy lol.

A possibly niche (or if not niche, at least backlist) classic that I'd recommend to fans of alternative fantasy and fairytale retellings. I can't wait to read the next books.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal death, Classism, Death, Pregnancy, and Sexual content