Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten

25 reviews

mandersdraws's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I found this book absolutely gripping. It immediately grabbed me because the protagonist is an underworld spy (and with a terrible secret, my weakness as a reader lol), but slowly but surely Whitten sprinkled in world building and character tidbits that got me absolutely hooked. Characters feeling the pull of ancient magic. Lore seeing underneath Bastien’s princely facade. Gabriel stuck between his guilt, his sense of justice, and his desires. A mystery that revolves around the remnants of old gods. 
Simply put, I love this shit!! I read it twice, once with an audiobook and then again with an ebook. It got me theorizing and highlighting the text like I’m trying to solve a cryptogram. I don’t even mind the love triangle (though I do hope it manages to subvert some of the cliches and tropes we expect with love triangles) 
Edit: I’ve also read the sequel, Hemlock Queen, and I can’t wait for more! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Blood, Cursing, and Gore

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Abandonment, Alcohol, Child death, Confinement, Drug use, Murder, Drug abuse, and Vomit

Minor: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Terminal illness, War, and Body shaming

Manipulation is a big theme of this book.

jessclaymakes's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I really had a good time with this book. I loved Lore (FMC) and her backstory I thought was really well done. This book had great dialogue and a plot that kept me engaged. I loved the tension between Lore, Gabe, and Bastian and thought that the mystery surrounding the story was enticing. 

There were even some borderline scary/disturbing parts which I think speaks to the authors ability to weave a visual with her words. 

Where it lacked for me a bit was the end. It felt fairly predictable and also rushed. I will read the next in the series but I’m not rushing to do so. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Religious bigotry, Trafficking, Animal death, Drug use, and Drug abuse

kbowles24's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Addiction, Violence, Religious bigotry, Murder, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Confinement, Child death, and Animal death

Minor: War, Terminal illness, and Pregnancy

manaledi's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

This book started slowly but had some interesting developments and I'm very curious to see where book two goes. A fairly hit you over the head with it religious imagery on themes like separation of church and state. I thought the poison element was interesting but wished mortem was laid out more clearly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Death, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Abandonment, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Murder, War, Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Cursing, and Grief

cdoubet's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Death, Torture, Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, Murder, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Classism, Violence, Confinement, Child death, Death of parent, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Genocide, Cursing, Grief, Gore, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Animal death and Animal cruelty

Minor: Sexual content, Pregnancy, and Sexual harassment

jaynovara's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Animal death, Drug use, Child death, Animal cruelty, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Genocide, Confinement, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Religious bigotry

clairew97's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Vomit, Murder, Gore, Violence, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Alcohol, Body horror, Bullying, Misogyny, Kidnapping, Child death, Grief, Addiction, Blood, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, War, Religious bigotry, Classism, and Death of parent

krystlethegreat's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Bastian is the best fantasy genre prince since Cardan (Folk of the Air series)! He carried much of this book on his back and had me laughing so often! 
I thoroughly enjoyed this book on audio - what a narrator! Each character had a distinct voice, from one narrator! A total thrill to listen to. 

My only complaint is: There is soooo much going on, that I didn't get to explore each thing as much as I wanted to. Magic, poison running, catacombs, citadel, monks, Gods, kingdom, world beyond the kingdom... We get the gist of why each is important to the story, but I hope the next book immerses us in each of the areas more. (I'm in full support of a longer book!)

Overall, I couldn't stay away from this book and can't wait until The Hemlock Queen!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Religious bigotry, and Drug use

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, and Abandonment

Minor: Violence

alilbitofeveryth1ng's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Kidnapping, Terminal illness, Death, Drug abuse, War, Abandonment, Animal death, Confinement, and Religious bigotry

bluejayreads's review against another edition

4.0

I took a long time to get through this book, but it wasn’t the book’s fault. I got about halfway through it and then got in a reading slump where I didn’t feel like reading anything – even though I really enjoyed the first half of this book. But eventually I got over the slump and kept going, and of course I finished this book because there’s so much to love.

If you’ve been following this blog for more than a month or two, you probably already know that two of my favorite things for books to have are absurdly powerful protagonists and weird, creepy, and/or otherwise unique religions, the more fanatical the followers the better. So you will not be surprised to find a large part of what I liked about this book is that it has both of them.

I’m going to start by talking about the religion, because it’s foundational to the world and the magic system that our protagonist uses. First off, there is only one god, the god of light and life – because the rest of the pantheon is dead. The rotting corpse of the goddess of death and darkness, murdered by the god of light some centuries past, is buried underneath the city. Magic spills from the corpses of dead gods, which means the city is full of death magic, called Mortem – although not as much as you would expect, because an order of monks given the ability to interact with Mortem by virtue of a near-death experience are in charge of channeling it into stones and plants and otherwise keeping it from killing people. Which, despite the the fact that all of the names for people and magical forces and everything are terrible in this book, is a fantastic premise. “The gods were real and now they’re dead but their power isn’t” is one of my absolutely favorite fictional religion concepts. “Dead goddess’s corpse buried under the city” is a FANTASTIC premise. I love it.

And then we come to our protagonist Lore, who is not only the most powerful Mortem-wieldier since the necromancers were murdered, but was born with this ability for reasons that don’t get explained until the end but definitely involve our dead goddess. She grew up in a smuggler gang helping her moms move illegal drugs around the city, so she’s scrappy and fierce. But she’s actually not all that great at hand-to-hand combat and doesn’t fall into plucky YA heroine tropes. (Despite Lore being twenty-three, this whole book has a distinctly older-end-of-YA vibe.) She’s clever and fierce and powerful, but she’s also determined to survive and generally makes smart choices, which I really appreciate.

This book also gets an award for having the only love triangle I have ever read that I didn’t loathe. I actually kind of liked it. Lore is attracted to the generally kind, highly loyal, fiercely religious young monk who is assigned to both protect her and keep her from escaping while she navigates the court. She’s also attracted to the incredibly handsome bad boy Prince Bastian, who is powerful in his own way and maybe not as bad as everyone keeps telling her. There was a bit of triangle-ing and confusing pining, but I think there were really two things that kept me from hating it. One is that both guys seemed like reasonable choices, for different reasons – I didn’t feel like one was the obvious good choice and the triangle was just unnecessary complication. The other reason is that Lore refused to let the romance be any more than a background element. She is far too practical to let something silly like two hot guys distract her from what’s really important: Stopping the serial mass murder going on, unraveling the complicated plot of theoretical magic and court politics that may or may not be causing the serial mass murder, and most of all staying alive. Lore did have real human emotions and romantic feelings, but she was also relentlessly pragmatic and set on her own self-preservation, which I really loved about her.

The characters were solid, the story was delightfully twisty, the magic and religion were amazing, and the conspiracy, like a good conspiracy, turned out to be much darker and much wider-reaching than I anticipated. The only thing I didn’t actually like was the ending. It seemed far too straightforward after how complex and layered the rest of the book had been, and felt very anticlimactic. The love triangle didn’t even shake out very well because Lore did make a choice, sort of, but the nuanced relationships she had built with both men seemed to entirely vanish after the climax. Despite how much they had all been through together, they seemed cold and distant, like they were back to being total strangers again. On the whole, it felt unsatisfying.

A somewhat unsatisfying ending doesn’t negate how much I enjoyed the rest of the book, though. World, plot, characters, setting, religion, atmosphere, romance, character dynamics – up until the climax and resolution, they were all fantastic. It’s dark, it’s twisty, there’s a love triangle I didn’t hate, it’s got a dead goddess and creepy monks and creepier nuns and a massive conspiracy, and on the whole, it’s a very good book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Body horror, Gore, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Animal death

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Terminal illness, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, Vomit, and Child death

Betrayal, religious abuse, child neglect (mentions)