Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

24 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

aduqu's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

3.0

This book is a product of the early 2010's, when paranormal romances with chosen one heroines were a dime a dozen. Diana Bishop is not exactly a Mary Sue, but this book will beat you over the head with how special and chosen she is.

It's a fun read if you like paranormal romances and don't think about it to hard. I definitely rolled my eyes a LOT reading this, but it was always entertaining.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Kidnapping, and Torture

Moderate: Child death and Rape

Minor: Vomit

laurenfink's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.5

I really love this series but it’s just a little to convenient how some of the plot lines work out

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Blood, Pregnancy, Child death, Miscarriage, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Murder, and Rape

oksmithie's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

This was a final book of a trilogy that did not disappoint. There were some things that seemed over the top and unnecessary, but all-in-all, I was not mad at where the story/characters ended up (as is often the case for me with trilogies). This will be a trilogy that I will re-read… all 1500+ pages. The audiobook is also well done (for all three installments). I used a combo of paper and audiobook to read this trilogy. It was the only way I could get through it and still have a life! Well worth the commitment! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Murder, Misogyny, Confinement, Infertility, Child death, Miscarriage, Violence, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Rape, Kidnapping, and Death

There is one scene of kidnapping of a male character and his torture in particular that includes most of the graphic content.

It did not feel unnecessary or manipulative by the author (it was manipulative by the story’s villain).

booknerderika's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Kidnapping, Medical content, Child abuse, Murder, Torture, Vomit, Death, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, and Blood

Moderate: Miscarriage

Minor: Antisemitism, Sexual violence, Rape, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and War

joey_paige's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Torture

Moderate: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Medical content, Stalking, Confinement, Cursing, and Medical trauma

Minor: Murder and Rape

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

lucyatoz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

5.0

Diana and Matthew. Witch and vampire. Their love has brought conflict and hope. But only together can they learn at last what the witches discovered so many centuries ago. And it will have consequences for all...

The Book of Life is the last novel in a trilogy which tells the story of Diana, a witch, and Matthew, a Vampire, coming together (Book 1, A Discovery of Witches) and their time living in Elizabethan England in 1590-1 (Book 2, Shadow of Night), picking up their tale now that they have returned to the present day. 

The final book in this trilogy brings in the wider De Clermont family and is a much darker story compared to the first two novels. It also does brings nicely to an end the story of the couple's troubles with the Congregation and their violation of the Covenant. I do hope that further novels are written about some of the other characters in the story, such as Gallowglass, Matthew's nephew, and their children Phillip and Rebecca.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Murder, Rape, Violence, Blood, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, and Torture

Minor: Cursing

redheadsuperpowers's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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? No

3.75

I stick by my description of this series as Twilight for adults, but it's so well written, and I enjoyed this close to the series so much. It tied up all the major plot points, and the minor ones left open are likely to close with the next series set in this universe. (The first of those books is out!) The relationship between the main characters, Diana and Matthew, settles some, easing how annoyed I was with male lead in the second book. The family moments were many, and one scene made me cry. I was disappointed with one major plot point though. It's a spoiler, so I won't share it, but I was like 'wait, what? Why? Who?' and the book did not answer that point.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gore, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Death, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Murder, Stalking, Torture, Body horror, and Forced institutionalization