Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

8 reviews

gillian_aftanas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• 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: War, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Torture, Violence, Gore, Grief, Murder, Rape, Cursing, Death, Child abuse, Child death, Sexual violence, Vomit, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexual content, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Confinement and Alcohol

Minor: Animal death, Classism, Genocide, Homophobia, Antisemitism, Lesbophobia, Drug use, and Death of parent

micaelamariem's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

This series started out so strong but it gradually got worse, in my opinion. I don’t think the book needed to be as long as it was, as a lot of the detail seemed to be just deliberation on how to handle their problems. There were action scenes but these seemed few and far between. I also am a little biased as I hate the pregnancy trope, so I was doomed to hate this part of the series. I also felt like this Matthew De Clermont I fell in love with in the first book was not here; I get that characters change but I did not like this new Matthew. I did like the themes of fighting for change and learning about new and strange things versus fearing them. It’s a very important theme, especially today, so I admired that’s what the characters were fighting for: loving and embracing difference. That being said, I’m glad this series is done. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Drug use, Torture, Violence, Alcohol, Abandonment, Child death, Death of parent, Murder, Sexism, Cursing, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, and Blood

toastyghosty13's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

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

2.5

This book was a below average way to end off the trilogy, in my opinion. There were a lot of things that I felt ruined this book, mainly the fact that it centered around Diana being pregnant and protecting the twins rather than doing anything. I hate any pregnancy arc in a story because then it seems like the character is walking on egg shells, and god forbid any woman try to save the world while pregnant. I have read other stories where a character is pregnant but is still able to help save the world and actually makes quite a large impact, so Diana being written in the opposite manner is a huge disappointment.

I also have issues with the fact that

Gallowglass has supposedly been in love with Diana this entire time. This gives a huge ick since he has called her "Auntie" since the 2nd book of the series. It is also just strange to include his infatuation for her as a detail since there were never any hints or evidence that he was feeling this way until she saw his tattoo of her in this book. It felt very forced. He starts to sulk a lot and Diana hopes he will find someone to love, which sounds like he might meet someone in the future but he basically just disappears with no explanation.

This entire book centers around finding the book of life and

Benjamin and Knox. I do not understand why Diana is able to do a tracking spell for the 3 missing pages, the book, and TJ Weston but is unable to do the same for Knox and Benjamin despite the fact that Knox is able to track her with his own spell. She is a weaver, she should be able to just create her own spell for this.

I also do not understand the ending, where

Philippes ghost returns and says that he "has been looking for the one that could do his burdens without breaking" and that "it isn't over yet". This obviously implies some sort of continuation and that more will come, yet this is the last book of a trilogy? At least we got some closure about how Diana and Matthew and Sophie and Nathan can have children, but there are still so many other things left open, like Emily's death and her actions shortly before it, plus anything on Gallowglass as well as what happens next with Phoebe and Marcus.

Another bit about the ending of the book is that

the fight against Benjamin and Knox is so lackluster. The entire book is a buildup to Diana and crew trying to find them and the book of life, just for her to kick their butts in ~2 pages, which is considerably less than the amount of text it took to describe her giving birth to the twins. This was exceptionally a let down to me on both fronts of too little combative showdown and too many birth descriptors. I did not need to know about her contractions, nor did I find it relevant in anyway to the main plot line. Even the existence of the twins seems so pointless to me because they bring basically no value.

In addition, Benjamin and Knox are such evil and disgusting creatures that have committed horrific actions against others; they deserve to have a gruesome and drawn out death. I feel like no justice was done and that their quick deaths were letting them off very easily

Overall, I was pretty disappointed in the way this trilogy has ended and I am kind of upset that I had bought the hardcover versions after liking the first two books so much. I almost hope there is a 4th book to actually tie it all together with all of the loose ends still left, but at the same time I don't know that I would bother reading it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Miscarriage, Torture, Rape, Sexual violence, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Sexual content and Child death

Minor: Drug use

katvou's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Physical abuse, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Drug abuse, Miscarriage, Child abuse, Drug use, Infertility, Rape, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

juliette_95's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Alcohol, Child death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Death of parent, Misogyny, and Addiction

fridayoddity's review against another edition

dark emotional lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

I was kinda disappointed by the conclusion and ending being just what it is after all that build up. But now I’m curious to see how it’ll translate in the TV show.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Rape

maddox22's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Torture, Violence, and Sexual content

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

solinel7's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

Loved this conclusion to the All Souls Trilogy. Although there were a lot of talks about alchemy and genetics that I didn't always get, I couldn't put it down. The author's way of writing is captivating 'cause even what you don't understand you're interested in learning more aboutthe charactersand the world they live in. Wouldlove to see more of this world. This is one of my favorite Trilogies/ Sagas to date. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence