Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Weaver and the Witch Queen by Genevieve Gornichec

21 reviews

elorathesun's review

adventurous emotional inspiring tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Violence, Murder, War, Grief, Self harm, and Gore

Moderate: Blood

Minor: Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexism, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Self harm, Animal death, Trafficking, Transphobia, Torture, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Murder, Alcohol, Slavery, and Panic attacks/disorders

softanimal's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

4.0

I really enjoyed this book and I love Gronichec's writing but it didn't grab me as much as the Witch's Heart. I couldn't help comparing the two unfortunately. But still a wonderful story and telling.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, and Outing

Minor: Outing, Vomit, Slavery, and Rape

hkrobock's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Emotional abuse, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent

aformeracceleratedreader's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

3.75

As someone who loved The Witch's Heart, I had high hopes for this. It unfortunately doesn't come close to how much I loved the author's previous work, but I still really enjoyed it. Love that one character is explicitly demi-sexual with stating how they can't do intimacy without really knowing someone first (love the ace/aro rep) and one character is trans. Overall loved the story and the little twists/reveals. The main characters are good as well even though they frustrated me at times throughout. Many of the minor characters were great though.
I will say there are a lot of slow spots for me and I didn't have the same intense emotions reading it as the authors previous book, and those are big reasons it wasn't a 5star read like The Witch's Heart for me. I will still totally look forward to any books or work this author does in the future!
Check trigger/content warnings although nothing was super graphic stuff was still detailed and mentioned.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Murder, War, Animal death, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Violence, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Toxic relationship, and Blood

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Outing, Infidelity, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Vomit

jennp28's review against another edition

adventurous informative 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? It's complicated

5.0

Really enjoyed this one! I love finding new eras of historical fiction to enjoy and Viking-era Scandinavia is one I’ve not read about before. The addition of magic/mythology made it even better. Loved the rep of women taking on “male” roles, the inclusion of what would today be recognized as a trans person… so much good stuff! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

slinkmalink's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

There were parts of this I really liked - the image of magic working as tethered to their bodies with a thread was cool, and I liked a lot of the side characters a lot too.

I particularly thought Halldor was a really cool inclusion, especially having read an interview where she said she was inspired by a Viking grave filled with weapons alongside bones later proved to be female, and the interpretation by some academics that we shouldn't assume how they identified, and they could have been a trans man rather than a shield maiden.

The adventure was cool, and I liked the fact that the most important relationships in the book were between the women. Oddny in particular was a good character for me as I think she did have a lot of depth and between her and Gunnhild I thought she was the stronger character. 
Gunnhild did annoy me at parts,

the whole cheating thing and then not backing down from it was irritating,

and I know she was the main character but she did have main character syndrome.
There was a lot of enemies to lovers but the tone of Eirik and Gunnhild was very different to that of Oddny and Halldor. Again there were bits of the Eirik/Gunnhild romance I liked, the moments of realising they had shared childhood trauma were good, but they did get somewhat irritating.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Violence

Minor: Slavery

epen's review

adventurous inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No

I was excited about this initially, but by the end I was finishing to get it over with. The pacing was off—the middle dragged on, and so much happened at the end that felt unearned. I am fine with unlikeable characters as long as the book has a smart perspective on them, but I found Oddny deeply unlikeable in a way that I don't think the book had a clear perspective on, and I ultimately don’t know that I could say that Gunnhild was super fleshed out as a character either. As other reviewers have noted, by the end this was regurgitating romance tropes and I was put off by the story’s handling of the central characters’ relationships to one another vs the men in their lives. 
This was a fun backdrop for a story but it disappointed me on the whole. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Slavery and Violence

mzgeee53's review

adventurous dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Animal death, Blood, War, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Sexual content, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Sexual violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Slavery, Death, Physical abuse, Grief, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Murder, Child abuse, Alcohol, Transphobia, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Vomit, Pregnancy, Medical content, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Chronic illness, and Medical trauma

netanya_shira's review

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Blood, Sexual assault, Slavery, Animal death, Rape, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Violence, Grief, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Death of parent, Misogyny, Sexual content, and War

reclusivebookslug's review

adventurous challenging 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

I find that many, if not most, descriptions of conflict within friend and/or sibling relationships, especially between women and girls cast one as a sort of antagonist, often seemingly unintentionally. Even in stories where the story ends with them having a good relationship, I'm left with a strong dislike for one of them and indignation on behalf of the one I perceived as having been victimized. For this reason, I often struggle to fully enjoy or buy into narratives with a theme of sisterhood or female solidarity.

In this book, Gornichec handles beautifully the complicated relationships between three women -- two sisters and their friend, all "sworn sisters" -- who have very different personalities, goals, and struggles, which sometimes come into conflict with each other. She also portrays the female antagonists with surprising depth and empathy. It is not "the duality of women: good and evil," it's just different women in different circumstances doing what they can to protect their own interests within the framework of both society and their own individual sense of the world. This is an excellent example of writing female villains and interpersonal conflict between women without encroaching into misogynistic tropes/undertones and instead using all these various female narratives to tell a story of women's strength.

With that in mind, I'd posit that the three things that separate the three sworn sister protagonists from the three witches who are trying to separate them are: genuine care/respect for their allies, acting upon their free will rather than trying to conform to or escape from a prescribed reality (AKA not basing their actions on a prophecy), and an ongoing self-reflection of their actions and allegiances. While I love historical fantasy and I think this book does an excellent job of it, what really stood out to me was the emotional intelligence, growth, and complexity of all the major characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Violence

Moderate: Trafficking

Minor: Misogyny, Child abuse, and Transphobia