Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny

4 reviews

princess_azula's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

Another fantastic mystery, twists and turns around every corner! The way the book and the characters discuss life and all it’s beauty and messiness is so thorough and beautiful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia

Moderate: Suicide, Body shaming, Murder, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Child abuse, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Mental illness

Minor: Child death and Car accident

jhbandcats's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

I recall that when I read Still Life, the first in Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache series, I didn’t get why everyone loved her books. Since then I’ve watched the Three Pines series on TV - the first two episodes are based on A Fatal Grace - and Alfred Molina makes Gamache such a warm, sad, and sympathetic character that it has changed my perception. 

Gamache and most of his team work well together and have a long history that the reader hasn’t (yet) seen. An inexperienced and, frankly, destructive member is foisted onto them, and this is part of a mysterious backstory that’s repeatedly referenced but not spelled out. I kept reading hoping to find out more, but was instead entertained by the mystery in the foreground, the murder of a villager whom everyone hated. 

Against this backdrop of tension and distrust, Gamache and his team must solve more than one murder to understand the misery in a family that’s been in Three Pines only a year or so. Seeing the interactions of the quirky villagers is the real delight here - Penny creates a whole system of friends and friendly rivals that expands with each book. We learn more and more about these characters, and about Gamache, and that’s the pleasure of these books. 

I really enjoyed this and I hope to read the first one again to see if I like it any better now than I did five years ago. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Alcoholism, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Murder, Body shaming, and Bullying

franklola's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Vomit

emably's review against another edition

hopeful mysterious slow-paced

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

1.0

I tried to give this series a second shot, but I was supremely disappointed. I guessed the “twist” ending within the first couple chapters. I understand it’s a cozy mystery, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be so predictable. This was minor, though, in comparison to the horrific fatphobia rampant throughout. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Vomit, Murder, Mental illness, Excrement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Death, Death of parent, Colonisation, Child abuse, Bullying, Body shaming, Alcohol, and Fire/Fire injury