Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

65 reviews

lotus440's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

therainbowshelf's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous 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

I read this because it was one of the books picked for the September Rainbow Crate Book Box. It was a fun read. I absolutely loved the fairytale feel of this story about a girl cursed to be poisonous to the touch, and enjoyed all of the various twists and transformations throughout. It was also a ton of fun reading about the author's inspiration in the back of the book. I wish that had been at the front!
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kbairbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

4.0

A sleeping beauty retelling! With Persian influence?! Wow I really enjoyed this! I love how the romance was subtle but had a nice feel to it and that the parent wasn’t entirely useless and that a man wasn’t the one to step through and save the day. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

pastelkerstin's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

stardust_heidi's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense 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

4.5

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

esme_may's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I wish I had liked this more! The last hundred or so pages are well-paced and gripping, but I don't think the previous 200 are worth it. I loved the concept but I found it difficult to get invested, especially since the relationship isn't given much room to develop. I think this book needed to be a bit longer to flesh it out.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

thefightinside's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious 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? Yes

4.75

Beautiful, historically rich, rooted in actual Persian myth, and an amazing journey to self love and acceptance 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

maisiemoo's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark hopeful 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? Yes

3.0

It took me so long to get into this but I think thats because I don’t read a lot of fantasy. By the last third of the story I was really engaged. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

btorsi's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.0

dnf in 2020. recommitted and finished in april 2022. a ton of fun and kept my interest piqued the entire way through. the last 10% was double the fun of the rest combined, but i don't think it would be that fun without everything the beginning set up. if i hadn't read it all in a few days, i could definitely see myself getting stuck -- the whole selling point is the poison girl and
she loses the poison in the first half
. but sticking it out was the right choice because it is a wonderful book.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

zabeishumanish's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Expect this book to be about 40% sadder than you are initially expecting and that will give you a good sense of this book. The tale is well written and while there are the usual difficulties in following a high fantasy world the plot explains nearly all the questions are reader might have. Something I really liked about the book is how important stories and legends are to Soraya and how her love of legends helped inform the reader about world-building.

I appreciate that the book tackles such a complex issue as compulsive heteronormativity (without calling it that obviously), but by making the villain of the story her heterosexual option he was humanized to the point that he was no longer a fun villain.  It is hard to hate such a dark villain when you can see him as just a broken human, and then I kind of hated myself for not being able to hate such a clearly evil man.

I read the book specifically because I wanted a sapphic fantasy, and while this does technically hit the mark I wanted so much more from this love story. It needed so much more gay.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings