Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

43 reviews

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.

itsnotalakeitsanocean's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

2.75

This book was really promising and had a very strong start, but as things went on I think it suffered from having too many ideas that didn't mesh cohesively together. It resulted in a lot of repetition and a lot of descriptions of the main character walking, driving and running everywhere and limiting the interesting parts of the action (then again given he was a police officer, I'm not surprised).

Things I liked:

• Having a POC protagonist and going into detail about the struggles of his childhood was interesting.
• I really loved the idea that every river in London was represented by a character that was either chosen by the river or born into the family of rivers.
• I liked Nightingale's character and, ironically for a mystery book, the fact that his past wasn't spelled out and gave him some sorely needed intrigue. 

Things I didn't like:

• The protagonist didn't really have a strong character or any flaws that weren't certain characters bashing us over the head with "oh you have a shit home life and you fucked up your education" or "you need to be more focused". To me those aren't really flaws, or at the very least strong flaws that could cause interesting conflict in the story.
• On a similar side note,
  while it was nice to have the protagonist and the rivers be POC/mixed as generations went along, I feel like the author was trying to express how they were both African-British families from a different diaspora from one another, but didn't. The rivers family seem to have some kind of West African/Yoruba heritage, but the protagonist was just "African-British".
• As mentioned above, the story suffered from too many ideas that didn't mesh well together. In particular, I feel as if the story suddenly spinned into
  acting out the play of Punch and Judy, with the culprit being the ghost of an actor for Punch out of nowhere. 
  
  I think the author should have leaned more into the idea of people being forced to act out the roles of fictional characters if he wanted to include this element in the book
  . This also meant the titular rivers of London characters felt superfluous in a book that was named after them. The tensions between the two river families went nowhere and was an absolute waste.
• Part of me should have honestly expected this but some of the descriptions of the women were a bit leery.
• cw for rape
  Towards the end, a bit character ends up having part of his penis bitten off after trying to force himself onto someone and we're expected to sympathise with him. Nah mate, you got what you deserved for forcing yourself on someone.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Gore, Violence, Murder, Blood, and Body horror

Moderate: Child death, Racism, and Sexism

Minor: Rape

coslyons's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Violence, and Body horror

imds's review

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Addiction, Gun violence, Murder, Racism, Child death, Blood, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Medical trauma

noonjinx's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny informative lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

A really good contemporary urban fantasy mash up of police investigation and supernatural thriller. It's dark, mysterious, exciting and funny. Nicely paced and plotted with some great twists that I didn't see coming. I'm looking forward to reading more in the series. Apparently there's a TV adaptation coming and I think it's perfect material for that.

The book is a lovely first person narrative full of dry humour. There are lots of wonderful pop culture references, some of them so subtle that I'm sure must have missed others. All of the characters are great. Even the bit parts have quirks and attitudes and you can tell they have backstories and feel they live outside the book. Mother Thames and her daughters are awesome. What really shines through is the author's obvious love of London in every grimy detail.

I thought the opening was a little contrived but if you push through that it's well worth it. I guess the author needed to get his main character signed up before things really start going. Once you're a few chapters in, you can sit back and enjoy the ride.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Injury/Injury detail

raquel_rqlh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging funny informative lighthearted 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Cursing, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Addiction, and Murder

Moderate: Chronic illness and Medical content

catalyst226's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book was recommended to me by a librarian while I was browsing. He said, I think you'd like the audiobook, it's narrated by a Black British guy. 
Do I feel incredibly called out? Yes. Was this librarian right? Completely spot on. Loved the mixture of fantastic elements like magic, ghosts, etc with a crime investigation. (Shoutout to Elatsoe for introducing me to that in the first place). If you don't mind some pretty gruesome descriptions of violent crimes, check this out.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Body horror, Child death, and Gun violence

mags_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Blood, Gore, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Body horror, Medical trauma, Child death, Murder, and Physical abuse

Minor: Rape and Suicide

ahmandair's review against another edition

dark funny reflective tense medium-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Body horror

kartoffel_00's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

23/02/23:

It was a fun and okay read. Like not particularly exciting but also not particularly boring. The MC's musing and observations were fun to follow, like comments about bureaucracy. I didn't enjoy the male gaze parts though. Its not at the level of Dresden files but still there, which not going to lie, made me really uncomfortable. Not to say there weren't varied personalities of female character. The MC is just horny and makes it really really obvious. If I could reach inside the book and smack his head I would rate the book much higher. (jk)

Final rating: 3.5/5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Gore, Child death, and Violence

Minor: Sexual assault

This book has gruesome scenes so just prepare yourself for those. And gruesome in the sense that it doesn't provide details but the scene does make your stomach lurch for being what it is.