Reviews with content warning for Violence - Kiss of Death

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Kiss of Death by Alice Wilde

3 reviews

scarletbook's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

While not written the best and having some issues with character development and plot. I did thoroughly enjoy this book and will be reading the next.

Content Warnings

samandthebookstack's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

I hate leaving less than stellar reviews. I absolutely loathe to be brutal about something I know someone has poured a lot of time and effort into, but it can't be helped.

Trigger warnings to consider: multiple mentions and threats of sexual assault (like a lot), death, violence, ailing parent

Tropes: Cinderella/Beauty and the Beast/HadesxPersehpone vibes, MMC falls first, instalove, mild touch her and die vibes

First, the good: The cover is absolutely gorgeous, obviously. The premise was promising. I got Cinderella and Hades/Persephone vibes. Death is a pretty intriguing character, and a total cinnamon roll.

The bad: (there are mild spoilers below...)

There are four men worth mentioning in the beginning of the book that are not the male main character: Hazel's stepbrothers (there are two of them), her father (who is never really explored on page because he's dying, and Lord Payne. One of Hazel's stepbrothers is in love with her, but never really does a damn thing to help her aside from displaying violence in response to her other stepbrother who repeatedly tries to sexually assault her. Lord Payne, Hazel's betrothed, is essentially an extension of this theme. Basically, all the dudes in this story aside from Hazel's father and Death himself, all just want to assault her. While I have zero problems with reading novels containing dark themes, the way this was executed within this story felt shallow and gimmicky, as though the author wanted to write a dark romance, but thought that meant just making the FMC a constant target for men who want to harm her. It was gross. It didn't lead to the FMC growing any sort of backbone or learning anything about her own inner strength, it was simply there as a mediocre plot device.

Then there's the matter of the wicked stepmother. The woman is a damned monster. But much the same as it was with the sexual assault, the stepmother is incredibly abusive and the way it was written left me feeling gross. Again, I have read plenty of dark fantasies and dark romances, but this felt like violence against a helpless FMC for the sake of a plot device (and a shallow one at that).

Then there's the matter of the point of view. I'm not particularly picky about which POV an author opts to write in. This story is written in the first person present tense which means that there are a lot of "I's" and "as I" used in such repetition that it really began to bother me. The writing was choppy and frustrating and really would have benefitted from some additional editing and beta reading. There were so many repetitive phrases that could've been eliminated for the sake of clarity, that I skimmed the last 100 pages of this 247 page novel. I feel like the whole book would've benefitted from being written in any other POV than first person present.

I had to force myself to finish this one and I am not sure if I'll be able to read the last two books in this series. While I remain intrigued by Death's character, there was just simply not enough there to entice me to continue reading. I was 50% of the way into the book before I felt like anything was really even happening. And...there was no smut, which kind of sucked.

Content Warnings

djinnandtea's review against another edition

Go to review page

fast-paced

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

3.0

This was a quick and easy read. I appreciated the slower burn of the romance, even though I still think the two main characters fell in love with each other a bit too quickly. Sometimes stories rely on tropes to get their reader buy-in, and I would say that's the case with this book. That said, I did genuinely enjoy myself and the characters, and I'd recommend the book to others who enjoy this genre and/or these tropes. It's been a while since I started a book and couldn't put it down, and this one qualified!

Content Warnings

More...