Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

42 reviews

thequiltyreader's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.0

Enjoyable read and good set up novel for the series. I found small sections a little too verbose which sometimes brought the quick pace to a crashing stop but that would be my only complaint and I'm hoping that's just partly down to this being a scene setter first novel in the series. Looking forward to book 2.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Addiction, Violence, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Murder, Suicide, Death, Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, Medical content, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Blood, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Torture, Gore, Racial slurs, and Sexual assault

elesme's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.0

Story was interesting, but was far too violent

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Violence, Child death, Murder, and Grief

Moderate: Domestic abuse

Minor: Vomit

extrey_extrey's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Sexual content, and Torture

smax's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Child death

It’s generally a fun, easy, somewhat lighthearted book, but there’s a really unexpected scene pretty early on where a baby dies, which took me off guard.

popsicleplease's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Addiction

Minor: Racism and Xenophobia

littlebee09's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child death, and Gore

Minor: Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, and Vomit

a_k_lennard's review against another edition

funny lighthearted mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

3.75

I love the interesting plot lines and the characters. I think Aaronovitch’s writing style is reminiscent of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams in its playful and sarcastic manner. However, Aaronovitch’s protagonist is a black guy, Peter Grant, and you can tell that Aaronovitch doesn’t write from personal experience of being a black man (he’s white). This leaves Peter Grant feeling like a caricature rather than a real person (this does get better as the books go on). I also don’t particularly enjoy the way women are referred to in this book — if a woman is mentioned, it is all about sexualising her, especially the young black women (specifically Beverley) because of course!
I do think the author had some constructive feedback (maybe after the second book) because they are getting less and less offensive which can only be a good thing. Who knew a middle aged man could learn that some people are more than their tits?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Child death

Moderate: Racism

freya163's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

2.25

Probably a really engaging book to some, it just wasn’t my style. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Death

Moderate: Child death

mayvisin's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny informative lighthearted 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? No

4.0

I really liked this book! The world building was super fun (especially the rivers), I really enjoyed Peter as a protagonist, the supporting characters were really interesting and the audiobook was really well produced. 

The fly in the ointment for me (and probably why this was 4 instead of 5 stars) was that I was getting a literary version of "Would this pass the Bechdel test?" because almost all the female characters seemed defined by their sexual relationships/availability/lack of availability to various male characters. Clearly after reading mainly women authors for several months, going back to male portrayals of women is a bit of a shock to the system.

I liked the book enough though that I plan to continue the series and hope it gets better from that standpoint...🤞

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Gore, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, and Racism

Minor: Addiction and Rape

the_cheerful_necromancer's review against another edition

adventurous funny medium-paced

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

4.5

Ported over from my now-abandoned Goodreads:
I'm a sucker for an urban fantasy. A British-set urban fantasy chock full of geeky pop culture references, authentic slang, brilliant wit, quotable lines, genuinely tense mystery, an amazingly unique premise, excellently crafted magic system, lovable and complex characters, gloriously hateable villains- how could I possibly refuse? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Racism, and Sexism

Minor: Addiction

This book is a murder mystery. Many of those murders are graphically described, and at least one is seen in-progress:

a man murders his wife and infant child.

With regards to body horror, a main plot-point involves a gory magical injury:

the victim's face warps into an unnatural shape, damaging its structure irreversibly.

Note also that the main characters are a black male cop and a female cop, so there is some unpleasantness levelled their way. The narrative doesn't support it, of course.