Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury

19 reviews

ecster's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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? No

4.5

Love love loved this book! It's the perfect combination of fantasy and sci-fi with a flawed but brave Black teenage girl as a protagonist. I loved her character and her family with all their depth and messiness. Looking forward to getting IMMEDIATELY into the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Blood

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Death of parent

hecubatohim's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Torture, Murder, and Death

Minor: Addiction, Child death, Drug abuse, Grief, Racism, and Drug use

aformeracceleratedreader's review

dark mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.75

A slow start but picked up throughout. I really enjoy the premise along with all the magic meets future tech, but Voya could get a little frustrating. Will read the sequel because I overall enjoyed the story and writing.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Murder, Death, Medical content, Blood, Child death, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

xandra_'s review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Murder, Torture, Blood, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, and Slavery

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Police brutality, Racism, Deportation, Stalking, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Outing, Suicide, and Transphobia

Minor: Alcohol, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

nouveaudragon's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective 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

4.75

Blood Like Magic is a rich, complex journey of the main character Voya's soul. It dwells on character insecurities, history, legacy, and duty as it applies to family and self-identity alike. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Torture and Child death

jennyboj's review

dark slow-paced

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

2.5

The blurb made me think the "killing your first love" thing was a tradition, but it's actually a unique task and the family is equally horrified about it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Torture and Slavery

Minor: Eating disorder, Transphobia, Gun violence, Death, Child death, Police brutality, Addiction, Racism, Kidnapping, and Gore

halfbloodprincess_hogwarts's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

5.0

Blood Like Magic is pure perfection. I may have found my favorite book for 2022🥰😍

That was quite an emotional rollercoaster...I am speechless. It's impossible to add specific lines (I annotated this like crazy) without gushing over what happened that it felt like watching a movie series.

 It was quite indept... going through the various magic systems, magical families, scientific use of genes and the list goes on!!!!

 There were so many laugh out loud moments and one in particular was comic relief at the PERFECT moment 👏🏼🤌🏼 relating to a "certain" family member, it would be a HUGE SPOILER.

I ADORE Voya and find her to be a truly relatable character. From being afraid to making mistakes to her passion for baking to her fierce love for her family and grandma🥰🥺🦋.

I am so enthused its the first of a duology and will soon purchase physical copies to enjoy over and over again. BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR BLOOD LIKE FATE, released August 9th. I know for a fact it will NOT disappoint🔥🦋🦋🦋

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Addiction, Blood, Death of parent, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Violence, Alcohol, Child death, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Vomit, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Death, Hate crime, Murder, Police brutality, Infertility, Medical content, Body horror, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Bullying, Grief, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, and Stalking

theespressoedition's review

adventurous challenging dark slow-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

3.5

Alright, I gotta do it. I gotta start off this review with the part that really made me struggle to read Blood Like Magic:
The book literally opens with a character bathing in her own period blood. I'm sorry, but that is really gross. It made me nauseous just reading about it. And while I have no problem with books using blood magic or talking about periods.. that combination really, really hit me the wrong way. Not a strong start. It almost felt like clickbait. Like they added a shock factor right there at the jump to get you to stick around. And it worked. I stuck around. But that knocked a whole star off my rating from the get-go.

The moment I read that the protagonist had to kill her first love, I rolled my eyes. I thought, here we go again. How many times have we read that trope? HOWEVER, I will say that this was executed really well. It was rather unexpected as far as that part of the story goes (and it's basically the biggest part of the story).

I felt connected to the characters. I really liked a few of them, hated a few others, and worried about a few more. I wasn't particularly drawn to the MC because of her personality. It was slightly off-putting. But I did enjoy the love interest and the family dynamic. In fact, the family dynamic was probably my favorite part.

There was such a strong emphasis on the different relationships within the family and that's what tugged at my heartstrings and convinced me to keep reading. It's also what caused me to add the sequel to my TBR at the end, despite not loving this particular book.

Again, I feel like if the book hadn't started out so strangely, I would've been way more in love with it from the beginning.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Violence, Death of parent, Gore, Child death, Death, and Torture

Moderate: Eating disorder, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

Minor: Deadnaming, Gun violence, Police brutality, and Homophobia

megandherbook's review

emotional inspiring 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

3.75

Review to come

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Death

Moderate: Drug abuse, Murder, Abandonment, Eating disorder, and Racism

Minor: Torture, Police brutality, Addiction, Child death, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Eating disorder, and Slavery

prairieraven's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Abandonment, Alcohol, Blood, Child death, Classism, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, and Violence