Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - A Strange and Stubborn Endurance

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

10 reviews

alexaeves145's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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? It's complicated

4.5

This was a wonderful book, one I am likely to pick up again. It has a wonderful combination of plot building and character building. As someone who greatly appreciates focus on developing the relationships between characters, this book felt slightly lacking but the intrigue of the plot mostly makes up for that. Would definitely recommend.

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pixelateddragon's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.25

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters and the world building were interesting and well-written, and the voice acting in the audio book was absolutely amazing.
I loved the contrast of the queer-normative country with the more typically "medieval European"-esque one and how this was expressed and talked about in the text. (Loved the nonbinary representation btw!)
I knocked off a few points for how graphic the

sexual assault

was, I won't say it's existence wasn't important to further the conflict of the story but I felt it was in more detail than it needed to be to get the point across. Mind the trigger warnings!!!
And the plot was relatively interesting but a bit predictable, I guessed the twist pretty much as soon as the first attack happened & the MC was introduced to

the ML's sisters & the inheritance situation

but it wasn't disappointing.
I loved the relationships between characters especially the platonic & familial ones, they were dynamic and felt so real.
I ended up skipping the sex scenes so I can't really comment on them, because they always ended up playing when I was trying to eat in public (and I didn't bother to go back to them because I'm not terribly fond of having sex narrated to me in general 😅).

But overall the book was pretty enjoyable with a dynamic and rich world and characters with beautiful prose & audio narration but, it was a bit heavy handed and more explicit than needed with a few of the more 'traumatic' parts of the story (& the relationship was a bit rushed, but it's a romance book and that is typical of the genre so I can't complain too much on that), and the mystery was a bit predictable.

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robotnik's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

This book reminded me of A Taste of God and Iron, though a better version of it with main characters who were vastly more likeable.

The one thing I really feel is this book was far too slow. You probably could have cut anywhere from 100 to 200 pages out of it, and the story could have worked out the same in both character development and plot. I do admit to skimming a bit here and there because there was just so much description dumping that felt unnecessary.

A lot of the tension in the relationship was missing because we got to see both of their POVs (where one was told in first person and the other was told in third person, which was a weird and jarring choice that took time getting used to, tbh). We got to see what both their opinions were on each other and thus there was no real conflict within the romance portion of the relationship.

That being said, the pair are both likeable and the plot was interesting, even if it was vastly on the slow side.

I think I'll give the second book a try sometime, just not any time soon. This book was a little fatiguing because of how long it was, and i need a break from this world.

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smolhandsdan's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious sad tense medium-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

5.0

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phiagrace97's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense 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

3.25

This book seemed slightly lifeless and forced. I did enjoy aspects of the romance and was intrigued by the mystery, but the resolution felt flat and lazy. Additionally, I really don’t know why we had to start off with a rape scene and suicide attempt. It just all felt like it was too big of stakes and simultaneously like there were no stakes at all.

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khiobe's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful sad fast-paced

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

4.0

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librarianeno's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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

4.0

I feel like Meadows couldn't decide what to focus on: the magic, the romance, the mystery, or the language. So everything felt half-developed. What felt fully developed was the romance and the mystery. I had a hard time keeping track of all the different honorifics and pronouns that were used by the different characters. I wish that there was a glossary or explanation of how each one was used. The magic didn't really come into play until 3/4 of the way through the book and it felt like an afterthought. And like it was just added to try to bring a wider audience to the book. I loved all the LGBTQIA+ aspects of the story and especially loved that once the ambassador (I forgot the specific name Meadows uses for the ambassador) finds out that the main character is gay, she offers the brother of the girl he was going to betroth.

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