Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - Valiant Ladies

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for allowing me to listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.

This is a fun romp of two teenage girls fighting back against the classism and sexism of 17th-century Potosí, Peru. Kiki and Ana are both strong characters in their own rights, but I thought Ana was the more interesting of the two. She faced a lot of hardship and seemed more layered than Kiki, who was young and rich though very sweet.

While I really enjoyed the setting, sometimes the author would go a little overboard with various details. For example, it was reiterated over and over again how the girls' corsets dug into their ribs within a single scene. The same could be said about the beginning of the book when we're first introduced to Kiki and Ana. The young women's feelings for each other were written in a heavy-handed way to get the point across, rather than allowing it to unfurl throughout the story. While that heavy-handedness lightens up as the story moves along, it just made the beginning of the book seem unbalanced with the rest.

As for the narration, Frankie Corzo and Almarie Guerra both perform beautifully throughout, nailing their character to perfection. My only complaint would be that when those performances are paired together, sometimes their voices were hard to distinguish between each other since they were similar in pitch.

Overall, I really enjoyed listening to Valiant Ladies and my issues were minor when compared to the story as a whole.

Content Warnings

rey_therese07's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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? No

4.0

Content Warnings

foreverinastory's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

Ugh I loved this so much!!

Rep: Spanish-Peruvian sapphic female MC, biracial Dutch-Peruvian (indigenous) lesbian female MC, Spanish cishet male side character with gout who uses a walking aid, Spanish and Peruvian cast, mute Peruvian female side character who uses sign language.

CWs: Alcohol consumption, blood, body horror, colonisation, cursing, death, grief, injury/injury detail, kidnapping, lesbophobia/lesbomisia, misogyny, murder/ritualistic murder, sexism, suicide, violence. Moderate: past death of parent(s), chronic illness, fire/explosion, forced institutionalization (at a convent), gun violence, pregnancy mention, religious bigotry, sexual content (not graphic).

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