Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Hidden Kingdom by Tui T. Sutherland

3 reviews

wolfiegrrrl's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Based on the setup of the first two books, it has been made very clear that RainWings are an allegory for racism in the Wings of Fire universe; so The Hidden Kingdom started out promising, considering how racism plays a punishing hand in the atrocities of war. Through the course of this book, Glory (and the readers through her) learn that the truth about RainWings and their society is a lot more complicated than the rest of Pyrrhia is willing to believe and, from there, the book laid down the groundwork for a tricky subject to navigate for a middle-grade audience. With the introduction to the concepts of genocide and colonialism brewing on the horizon, the handling of this allegory begins to get shaky and fall apart the deeper into the rainforest our dragonets of destiny go, but if you squint you can maybe pick out a lesson this book is attempting to teach about the complexities of racism.

I sure hope Tui T. Sutherland is trying to say that, even if a group of people look or act one way on the surface and the bigotry seems to be based in something observably present (like RainWing "laziness"), it doesn't mean that's all there is to them or that they should be treated as lesser beings just because they live different lives than you do. After all, it's counterproductive misrepresentation to boil down an entire community to a few shallow features. But the explanation given for how racism against RainWings became so widespread disappointingly lends itself to a much more insidious reading of this book that unfortunately feeds more into racism than attempts to discourage it, so I'm personally torn. It's obvious we don't yet have the full story and sympathy is definitely on the side of the RainWings (for the most part), so my fingers are crossed for some improvement on the treatment of this subject as the series continues.

Otherwise, Glory gets a nice character arc where she finally carves out a place for herself in her own destiny. Her personal journey runs parallel to and branches off Tsunami's, likely due to the fact that they were always butting heads on the topic of leadership, so it was nice to see her come to terms with the idea that depending on others for help is okay.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Racism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Vomit, Death of parent, Colonisation, and War

Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Abandonment

orchidlilly's review against another edition

adventurous funny 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Vomit, and Colonisation

ayhuz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Vomit, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Torture, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Abandonment