Reviews with content warning for Gore - Midnight Riot

If you're a fan of crime, or police procedural books, I suspect The Rivers of London will be more up your street than it was mine. I really wanted to love it but just couldn't get into the story. After a very slow start, my main issue with it was that I found it too crime, not enough fantasy. But I also found many of the characters hard to gel with - especially Peter Grant. Until it was specifically mentioned that he is meant to be a POC character, I had no idea from the writing. Which was particularly surprising given, being set in the British police force, Aaronovitch had ample opportunity to explore the mix-race experience within law enforcement in his writing. This was completely wasted, with Peter reading like a white guy for 90% of the book. It felt a bit like an afterthought, or token diversity.

While occasionally funny, and having an interesting take on relating old magic to the modern world, I found the events of the book very stop/start and the stakes hard to invest in. At about 35% it became much more readable pace-wise, but I still didn't really warm to the characters or the fantasy world which had initially encouraged me to pick up the book. Disappointing.

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tamaraepps's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-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

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strangeeigenfunction's review against another edition

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adventurous informative mysterious medium-paced

4.5

I see a lot of comparisons to the Dresden Files, which I cannot provide, being unfamiliar with them. To me this feels something like Jasper Fforde was told to write a Discworld Watch novel but set it in London and include magic and copious historical details. I like it! (especially as someone who has feelings about a totally different river in an entirely different part of the world)

I can, however, definitely see how people could be annoyed by Grant's tendency to be sexually attracted to women at relatively inappropriate times (there's definitely sexism, though I'd stop short of saying the book expresses a notable level of hatred towards women, aside perhaps from the historical Punch & Judy story) and I expect people with only slightly less tolerance for historical details or technobabble might get bored here.

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fyre_flies's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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tanilian's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

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streetmuseums's review against another edition

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it just reeked of misogyny and had quite an immature narration to it. the whole premise of rivers as gods sounded really interesting to me but not worth continuing i don't think

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mar's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No

3.0

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