Reviews tagging 'War'

Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

125 reviews

readwithria's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-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? Yes

4.0

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven was the political, witchy-sisterhood book I didn’t know I needed.

I really enjoyed this book, and the characters took the cake. The POV characters, their children and wards, their partners, and all of the side characters felt so fleshed out and real. Their relationships were so fun to read about, even the bad ones.

I will say that it wasn’t until well into the book that I felt like I understood how the magic system worked. The delineation between the different types of witches and what they can do, plus the elemental aspect of witchery, made for a lot of information that I still don’t fully grasp.

I’m very excited to read The Shadow Cabinet! 4 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing, Transphobia, Murder, Violence, Toxic friendship, and Cursing

Moderate: Blood, War, Kidnapping, Alcohol, Car accident, Forced institutionalization, and Animal death

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

linnaea's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, and Transphobia

reubennieandthejets's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny fast-paced

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

3.75

Her Majesty's Royal Coven was an engaging read. It does what all good urban fantasy does and blends our mundane reality with a fictional fantastical world in a consistent way. I was able to suspend my disbelief and get sucked onto the story because the world building made sense with reality and the fictional rules of the world Dawson created. However, Her Majesty's Royal Coven has elements that stop it from being a 4 or 5 star book for me. The change of perspective wasn't entirely successful because specific povs felt more three dimensional than others. The depth and nuance in Niamh's and Leonie's chapters made me feel like Dawson enjoyed writing from her povs more. Therefore, I skimmed whenever the pov switched to Helena or Elle because I wanted to get back to the characters that felt more fleshed out. The constant change in perspective also impacted the pacing. It felt like the book kept stopping and starting.

Personally, I think the depiction of transphobic felt slightly unbelievable and abrupt. The rhetoric Helena uses did sound realistic. I'm sure Dawson has heard those exact arguments or had them aimed at her many times. However, the extremity of Helena's transphobia felt too sudden. That level of hated comes after a period of radicalisation and being in an echo chamber of disinformation. So I think, scenes of Helena seeking out other witches should have came before she jumped straight from mild disgust and confusion to fully fledged extremist terf rheotic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Racism, and War

zonnestraal's review against another edition

Couldn't relate to the characters. They're all thirthy-somethings and some already have teenagers! Plus they're all traumatized by some previous war and the deaths that came with it. The plot is also slow going, and doesn't seem to get started. Maybe I'll be more able to relate in ten years.

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Content Warnings

Minor: War and Death

r_gale's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

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

4.75

Loved this book, took a while for me to get into it with the chapters jumping between 4 characters. But once I hit the half way point I struggled to put it down. 

Love the way she writes so clever and funny and the characters are so well rounded, can't wait to read the next book ! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Sexism, Racism, and War

nightstitch96'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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Transphobia, and Death

Moderate: War and Racism

Minor: Homophobia

atamano's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Transphobia, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Homophobia, Child abuse, Colonisation, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Grief, Kidnapping, War, Blood, and Violence

Minor: Abandonment, Domestic abuse, and Cursing

elliesienk's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia

Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, and War

lorriss's review against another edition

emotional mysterious

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Transphobia, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Racism, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Car accident, Confinement, Deadnaming, Misogyny, Murder, Outing, Violence, and War

Moderate: Medical content, Miscarriage, Gaslighting, Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Vomit, Alcohol, Classism, Colonisation, and Infidelity

Minor: Child death, Excrement, Lesbophobia, Pandemic/Epidemic, Rape, Slavery, Abortion, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

albernikolauras's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-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? Yes

4.0

A story following 4 women who joined a coven in their childhood and survived a war. Now, a prophecy has been made and they must deal with the effects of the prophecy and the strains on their sisterhood.

The book took its time to establish the world and the relationships each woman had with their magic, the war, and the other women. The story ramps up in tension until a rather explosive battle in the end. HMRC series deals with a lot of white feminism, TERF politics, and female friendships. There were a lot of avenues and themes approached in this book, some handled to less depth than others.

Pacing was a little bit sporadic for me and the writing with a bit simplistic, but I enjoyed the characters (especially the younger kids). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia

Moderate: Racism, War, Violence, and Police brutality