Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner

29 reviews

kwthor's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Child death, Sexism, War, Alcohol, Homophobia, Drug abuse, Death, and Pregnancy

krystyne88's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective slow-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

3.5

I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who likes a more plot driven novel. The writing was beautiful and I loved the discussions about my beloved Jane Austen characters. It made me long for people to share these discussions with. I almost want to start my own Jane Austen book club. However, the plot was just too slow and not exciting enough. The ending felt rushed and forced and almost cringey. I still did like it though

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Miscarriage

Moderate: Addiction

Minor: War

bethlee's review

adventurous dark emotional reflective relaxing medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Minor: Miscarriage, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Grief, and Addiction

claretaz's review

hopeful medium-paced

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

4.0

I very much enjoyed this book. Grief was a theme of the book, but I found it to be very hopeful. The characters are loveable and it makes me want to read some Jane Austen.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, and Death

classical_learner's review

emotional hopeful informative lighthearted slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault

rosy_posy's review

emotional hopeful informative lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

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

3.25

Enjoyable read, it was a lovely style of writing, very comforting to read somehow. The eight main characters could only truly see themselves using Jane Austen’s work and it played very well. The only disappointment I had was that Adam Berwick was suddenly an heir (but did not use it) and was alone when he and Mimi had had such a connection. I also felt uncomfortable with Adeline and Dr Gray’s romantic relationship, with such an age gap and imbalance, particularly as he had watched her grow up.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Rape, and Sexual assault

Minor: War and Suicide

fromjuliereads's review

I think historical fiction just isn't for me. Also this swapped between characters WAY too much for me and I didn't really care about them. I skim read the last chapter and it ended how I thought it would. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting, Grief, Death, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Addiction, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, and War

ddammeyer's review

The sexual content was too much for me.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual content

markedwithanm's review

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Grief, Blood, and Mental illness

Moderate: War and Child death

tinkeringcheck's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

TLDR: Character-driven, multiple POVs, large cast with a lotta heart, slow pace, great audiobook narration, heartfelt exploration of grief, bit of an underwhelming ending.

To be upfront, I've... never actually read a Jane Austen book. However! I do have a lot of fondness for Austen screen adaptations. Was I a fool for diving into a book like this based solely off a recent rewatch of P&P 2005? Perhaps!

But despite all that, what I'd absorbed through cultural osmosis was enough to easily follow along. There were a few times when the characters got into discussions that made me feel like I'd shown up to an English Lit seminar without doing the reading, but these parts were still written in a pretty accessible way for newbies while digging deep into the themes of Austen's stories.

There are a lot of character storylines here and I admittedly had my favourites, but overall I found each brought something unique to the story and how we see the other characters. However, some POVs tended to slow down the story more than others. And because of the large cast and limited time with each,  you don't get a completely deep exploration of any one character. This can be a relief if there are POVs you don't click with, but left me a little wanting for my faves (like Adeline and Dr. Grey).

At the heart of the story, though, is a very poignant and relatable exploration of many different kinds of grief. While the WW2 setting has been overdone to death, it truly makes sense for this story for the unfathomable amount of grief it inflicted on society. Even so, this story is rooted firmly on the home front so it feels less a typical WW2 historical and more a story that just happens to be set during WW2. 

However, I do wish the ending had gone out on more of a bang plot-wise. It felt a bit underwhelming with some characters making regressive choices after seeing them grow so much over the course of the story. 

Overall, I really loved this story and these characters, and it made me interested in reading more of Austen's works! It has a slow pace though (the audiobook even moreso than the print book despite the excellent narration) and the characters - not the Austen plot - are definitely the focus.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Miscarriage, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Mental illness, War, and Addiction

Minor: Emotional abuse, Suicide, and Sexism

Graphic sexual assault: Happens in

chapter 6 I believe. As soon as Mimi goes to visit Monty the producer, skip to the next chapter if you need to.

Grief: It's a major part of the story, so if background deaths of parents/children/siblings or miscarriage will affect you it's probably best to skip this one.

Addiction: One of the characters starts struggling with a prescription drug addiction about halfway through the story. It's only lightly touched on and briefly described. They eventually take steps to help curb it, but they don't really get help for it (especially in terms of modern support).

Mental illness: One of the characters struggles with symptoms very strongly like depression and agoraphobia, and heavily isolates themselves because of it.

Suicide: Very brief mention of a character's relative sadly committing suicide in the past.

Emotional abuse: Nothing explicit, more one of the characters having a shitty parent.