Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

The Descent of the Drowned by Ana Lal Din

3 reviews

soniajoy98's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-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

this book was like a punch to the gut in the best and worst ways possible. trigger warning for everything but specifically sexual assault and suicide and torture and child abuse in all possible forms and also violence against trans and intersex people. this book is truly amazing but also very hard to read, which it should be considering the real life parallels, but still, read with caution. 
spoiler-ish stuff below and a reminder: trigger warning !!

Roma referring to her body as her shell broke me a little bit, and i spent the entire book just praying that nobody hurt her again and we got SO CLOSE but then everything with Chirag happened (i can’t even think about him right now without wanting to burst into tears for how awful his life ended and how he deserved so much more) and Roma is back in that dark place but it’s worse and she’s so deeply traumatized and the moments before her suicide attempt when she’s yelling at herself just made my entire body go cold. i started off interested in Levi and i’m still interested but i couldn’t care about him when Roma was suffering i needed to know she would be okay. i’m still in shock from this book and can’t write much more rambling nonsense but i want to make it clear i loved reading this even when it made me sob and have a mini breakdown it’s amazingly well written and the perspective of Roma is so wonderful and terrible and incredible all at once. especially reading this today after the mass shooting committed against 8 Asian women in Atlanta, this book filled with the lasting effects of violence against Asian and Middle Eastern women, but also the strength of those women and their incredible ability to survive was really powerful to read. rest in power to those taken from us too soon by racism and sexism, you deserved so much more and we will fight for you

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Murder, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Trafficking, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, War, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Drug abuse, Drug use, Medical trauma, and Miscarriage

natnoble66693's review

challenging dark emotional slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Racism, Racial slurs, Trafficking, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Hate crime, Gore, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Death, Child abuse, Blood, Alcoholism, and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Grief, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Trafficking

gigireadseverything's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

3.5

*I received this ARC from NetGalley*

Trigger warnings include, but certainly aren’t limited to, rape, child abuse, sexual slavery, trafficking, violence, murder, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and drug use.

 

The world created in this book is incredibly complex and richly drawn. Full points to the author for creating such a real world in a debut. However, it’s a world that is so unrelentingly dark and violent that it quickly becomes an overwhelming and depressing read.

 

I had to double check that this was actually classified as YA because the staggeringly dark themes and the slow development made me think this must be adult fantasy but it’s not. Personally, I would reclassify this as New Adult or Adult rather than YA. 

 

The pain and violence that are ever present in this book are intentional on the author’s part. The book is dedicated to Rohingya Muslims and the author says in her acknowledgment that she wanted to draw attention to war crimes, trafficking, ethnic cleansing, etc. She succeeded in that regard.  

 

When I finished this book, I was convinced I wasn’t going to read the sequel, despite finding it well written and giving it a 3.5 star rating, because of how emotionally draining it was to read. However, now that two weeks have passed (and I’ve recovered by reading a fluffy contemporary romance), I find myself deeply curious about where Roma’s journey will take her in the next book. Levi is significantly less interesting to me (the side characters connected to him even less so) but Roma’s story could continue in a myriad of ways and I find myself wanting to see what happens to her. I just hope we’re past the point where trauma after trauma after trauma is inflicted on her.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Trafficking, and Violence