Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

11 reviews

ari5scythe's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Police brutality, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Sexual violence, Ableism, Domestic abuse, Confinement, War, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Child abuse and Emotional abuse

corrin_takara's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

At times was a struggle to read partly because of the slow pace as well as a long list of possible triggering topics which lead to hard to read passages. Picked up towards the end and grabbed my attention with a satisfying twist 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Torture, Sexism, Police brutality, Miscarriage, Homophobia, Hate crime, Murder, Death, War, Racism, Misogyny, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Rape, Antisemitism, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Gore

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Ableism, Fire/Fire injury, and Dementia

pipn_t's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

Surely the author could have set the historical scene without so many racist remarks and sexist attitudes.  Also got tired of everyone beating each other to a pulp.  It was an interesting story, which is why I read to the end, but one of the major plot points revolves aroundc content I don’t like reading about (

incest

) so I felt rather like I wasted my time on this whole thing as it kinda ruined my enjoyment of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Violence, Misogyny, Racism, Racial slurs, Miscarriage, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Torture, Homophobia, and Murder

Minor: Child abuse, Antisemitism, and Ableism

chrisljm's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

1. this book would not pass the bechdel test.
2. the twist almost made me shit myself. 
3. “the day was turning out to be longer than The Brothers Karamazov” is so funny. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Excrement, Homophobia, Murder, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Violence, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Pregnancy, and Sexism

Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, War, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Gun violence, Infertility, Medical content, Miscarriage, Stalking, Terminal illness, Alcohol, Blood, Emotional abuse, Torture, Cursing, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Antisemitism, Bullying, Rape, Abortion, Classism, Racial slurs, and Adult/minor relationship

astrocate's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

3.0

Le mie opinioni sono di certo influenzate dal fatto che ho letto questo libro non per volontà personale ma per obbligo scolastico; in ogni caso, ho trovato il volume piuttosto noioso e non ho riscontrato alcun interesse nei confronti degli avvenimenti dei personaggi, la cui caratterizzazione ho trovato piuttosto blanda, fatta eccezione per la figura di Fermìn.
Ci sono stati dei passaggi e delle idee narrative particolarmente interessanti, come quello della biblioteca dei libri dimenticati, che però non sono stati approfonditi a dovere.
La storia di Juliàn Carex sarebbe stata di certo più avvincente se raccontata in modo diverso e più breve.
Il libro è descritto come un mistery, ma in realtà il lettore si ritrova con ben pochi elementi, e vengono svelati colpi di scena impossibili da prevedere e a tratti forzati, come

la fratellanza fra Juliàn e Penélope

.
Un'altra cosa che non mi ha convinto è la questione delle età: alla fine del libro

Daniel dice di avere un figlio di dieci anni quando ha quasi trent'anni. Quando si è sposato, dunque? A diciotto anni, prima di prestare servizio militare? Con Bea, una donna che conosceva così poco?

. 
Non mi è parso particolarmente realistico, così come non mi è parsa realistica la faccia tosta del protagonista nell'andare a chiedere a sconosciuti informazioni su Carax, e la disponibilità dei suddetti nel fornirgliele.
In sintesi, i presupposti del romanzo sono molto avvincenti, con uno sviluppo che, a mio parere, lascia un po' a desiderare.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Racism, Ableism, and Homophobia

shooper's review against another edition

It's really a pity. It's especially hard for me to dnf this right now because I just dnf'd another book. The writing in this book was exquisite- it would've got 4 stars. However, the author degrades women at almost every step of the way. I later learned that in the latter half of this book there are instances of homophobia and even ableism. I honestly can't get myself to read something like that and then give it any stars. I'm so upset because I had such high expectations. Oh well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism

Moderate: Homophobia and Ableism

florafauna's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Incest, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Death, Homophobia, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Confinement

Minor: Chronic illness, Excrement, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Outing, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Torture, and War

obviousthings's review against another edition

Only got to 5% because of the ableism & misogyny when Clara is introduced. No thanks.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism and Misogyny

texassizedreads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

The story is beautiful, but I felt like certain anecdotes were unnecessary and dragged the book on for too long.

Also, I was kind of weirded out by the whole incest thing, so a star was taken off for that.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Physical abuse, Gore, Forced institutionalization, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, and Confinement

Minor: Ableism, Abortion, Sexual assault, Sexism, Pregnancy, Torture, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Murder, Homophobia, Hate crime, and Child death

abomine's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

2.75

This was...fine. It started out with a solid premise and a good mystery with a beautifully rendered setting prefect for Gothic fiction, but petered out pretty quickly about a quarter of the way through. 

Rather than the reader solving the mystery alongside the protagonist, or having details slowly unfold over the course of the book, a lot of the information and 'clues' are fed to readers via long-ass flashbacks in which characters are privy to information they could not possibly have known. Considering how well-written the rest of Shadow of the Wind is, that felt like especially lazy writing.

I would also complain about how stereotypically-written the women characters are (they can all be boiled down to essentially flighty maidens, frigid bitches, or straight-up whores), but the men characters aren't particularly compelling either, so all of the characters, regardless of gender, are equally two-dimensional. The protagonist, Daniel, has potential to be an interesting lead (he's creative and full of big dreams, but also horny and cowardly, all of which frequently get him in trouble), but he doesn't get any real character development until the very last chapters, and by then it's too little, too late.

This book's villain, Fumero, was also pretty poorly handled. Imagine Robbie Rotten combined with Heath Ledger's version of The Joker, and then give him the basic-bitch backstory of "he was a weird kid growing up and probably has an undiagnosed mental illness and his mother abused him and he's just plain crazy", and you'll have a pretty accurate characterization of him. I'm never a fan of media portraying mental illness as monstrosity, especially with such a ludicrous character, so this docked Shadow of the Wind major points for me.

Really, the only good things going for this book are the writing and the setting, but I can't speak from personal experience for either. I have not read this book in its original Spanish, only an English translation, and I've never been to Barcelona. Still, these were the only two aspects of Shadow of the Wind that compelled me to finish it, and that should speak volumes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Domestic abuse, and Police brutality

Moderate: Homophobia and Sexism