Reviews with content warning for Racism - Midnight Riot

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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innocuus's review

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adventurous dark hopeful informative 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

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bronzeageholly's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

3.5

In general, the book has a very interesting concept. I went into it with no clue what the plot would be like and I was intrigued and then hooked very quickly by the great pace and immersive scene setting.

The main character isn’t exactly cool or exceptional and I kind of like that everything mystical or brilliant just happens around him and he stumbles through it all. He doesn’t seem too fazed by much of the magic or even his own abilities (which is perhaps a point missed), but despite this he is very inquisitive about the mechanics of it which is great for a main character and I appreciate the effort in that side of the world building.

What I really didn’t like, though, is that the guy is casually creepy all the time about women’s bodies - sexualising and oogling is pretty much always his immediate thought when he meets a woman. Hints that other characters are aware and critical of his creepiness did make it bearable, however. I slowly realised he’s a magical touch-starved idiot, a lover a dreamer a fighter a loser, and I have a soft spot for those kinds of characters.

why are you, a cop on the job trying to save all of london from horrifying supernatural terror, primarily concerned with hiding an erection you got from seeing a lady in a vest on the tube 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

last 5 mins of the book and we get “phantom dick snatcher” yo what

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mayvisin's review against another edition

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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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the_cheerful_necromancer's review against another edition

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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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aseel_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

This had promise, a supernatural force at the London police, investigating crime but man this wasn't great. Super slow and just kind of boring? Maybe better as a physical read but such a proling process for no reason as an audiobook.

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itsnotalakeitsanocean's review against another edition

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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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imds's review

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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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