Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova

7 reviews

chasingpages1's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Abandonment

Moderate: Confinement and Infidelity

Minor: Alcohol, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Racism, Self harm, and Stalking

escapismforlife's review

adventurous challenging dark hopeful inspiring 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? It's complicated

4.5

This book was unexpected in the best yet most magical of ways. I loved the fact that the Montoya family is so casual  throughout  most of the book about their gifts. Because they were raised in a mysterious and unique environment. They just  want answers  like most other large family's when the pasts comes to haunt them because of their grandmother's life. 

Marima  and Rey along with the rest of their cousins, aunts and uncles are so very different.  And they all don't  get along but they all band together in the end despite everything. Which made for such a good ending despite  the secerets that are slowly revealed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Abandonment, Blood, Animal death, Sexual content, Death of parent, Child death, and Alcoholism

thewildmageslibrary's review

4.0

This story was really intriguing! I had no expectations going in and it really caught me up.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Death, and Infidelity

Moderate: Death of parent, Sexual content, Child death, Racism, Pregnancy, Stalking, Grief, Adult/minor relationship, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Animal death

madmantha's review

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

5.0

Absolutely loved this book. I highly recommend seeing if your local library has the audiobook as well. 

I’ve now reread it multiple times and enjoy it more and more each reading. It’s such a poetic and circular story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Abandonment, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Stalking, and Body horror

Moderate: Infidelity, Emotional abuse, Sexism, and Sexual content

Minor: Animal death, Car accident, Genocide, Outing, Chronic illness, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Sexual harassment, Alcoholism, Ableism, Classism, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Animal cruelty, Cursing, Deadnaming, Deportation, Gun violence, Self harm, Stalking, Terminal illness, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Racism, Religious bigotry, Incest, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Cultural appropriation, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Child death, and Emotional abuse

bitterseason's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Death and Infidelity

Minor: Animal death and Child abuse

msradiosilence's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

I really enjoyed this book! The plot was easy to follow, even as it doubled back on itself. The one thing I didn’t enjoy as much as the rest of the book was the last 40 pages. A lot happened, and everything wrapped up sooooo quuuuickly. It felt a little rushed, and I wish a book that liked to play around and take it’s time would do that to the very last page. Now for spoilers!

I absolutely called the star being Mar’s dad as soon as she found the photo. And when Bolivar kept coming up, I also called him being the big bad. The book was still enjoyable, though, even when I was expecting the ending.

As for the last 40 pages, the deaths of Tatinelly and Mike were…super out of nowhere. And it all happened so quickly. Penny and Felix and the others at least got a few pages, and their funerals were talked about. Tati and Mike died in two pages and then got buried on a third and that was the end of it. Tati deserved better.

Also that last fight seen was a little confusing? It’s great that Mar came into her power and whatnot but the ending really was BOOM Tati’s death BOOM talking to the ghost great grandmother BOOM Mar’s father BOOM Bolivar revealed BOOM back at Four Rivers BOOM climatic battle scene THE END. For a book that made the characters wait SEVEN YEARS for anything to happen, it just felt very rushed. I wish Córdova would’ve slowed it down a bit.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Sexual content, Pregnancy, Infidelity, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Death of parent, Child death, and Suicide

Minor: Animal death and Body horror

laurareads87's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-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? Yes

4.25

“You have to focus all of your energy on that connection every family has. It’s in our bones, our blood. More than that, it’s in the questions we need answered. The secrets, traumas, and legacies that we don’t know we’ve inherited, even if we don’t want them.”
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina, set alternately between the United States and Equador, follows five generations of Montoyas and centres on the figure of Orquídea, a woman with many secrets. The novel jumps between Orquídea’s past as a child and young woman and her grandchildren’s present as they work to uncover the mysteries surrounding their family.
Overall, I really enjoyed this novel! It’s well written, the story is compelling, the characters are well developed, and the magical realism is perfect. I particularly appreciate that the story focuses on so many generations of multi-faceted and complex girls and women. The pace is a little slow at the outset, particularly as each member of the family is introduced in turn, but it picks up quickly enough and held my interest throughout – by the halfway point I had to know what was going to happen. Something about the third-person voice didn’t quite work for me consistently, but the beautiful writing, strong character development, and compelling narrative definitely add up to something special and I absolutely recommend this novel especially to those who enjoy magical realism and/or multi-generational family stories.
<i>Thank you to Netgalley + the publishers for providing an ARC in exchange for a review.</i>

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship

Moderate: Abandonment, Child death, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal death