Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan

10 reviews

viselik's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

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

2.0

At first, I just thought this book was boring and predictable but then it just started to get worse and worse. The book only gets good in the last 30-ish %, but I still had numerous issues with this book.

Please look up content warnings for this book, it deals with some pretty dark topics and the version I had did not have any content warnings in it.

1) There is no content warning and this NEEDED to have one.

•  There is a fucking
  concentration camp
  in it and there was no warning about it before we find out about it. We find out about it in Chapter 15.
• Emotional manipulation is a super big thing in this book, there is no warning about that.
  •  
    Like the entire character of Ronan/Sebastian should have had a content warning
     
    
    

2) 

The whole plot twist about Sebastian actually being the prince is just so bloody predictable if you have read romances before. He's written like a love interest for crying out loud.

 

•  
  Once we learned that Prince Ronan was missing I instantly knew that Sebastian was Ronan. It was too obvious to me after we had it stated that Sebastian was going away the night after the first day of the ball.
   

3) The naming system of this world. Characters and the land.

• We had the Seelie lands, the Unseelie lands and the Wild Fae lands... This just felt too basic for me.
• Then there are the characters. 
• Let's start with the main character's nickname, Brie. That is a cheese, a rather smelly cheese. I may or may not have just started calling her cheese girl.
• The two love interests! We have Ronan/Sebastian and... Finnian. I was left slightly disappointed by these.
  • Finnian's uncle is called Mordred or something like that and his father was called Oberon. I expected more considering the name of the people around them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Slavery, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, and Vomit

Minor: Sexism

booksarefriends_notfood's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I enjoyed this book for the fae drama and the struggles with the romance but other than that it really wasn't that great of a read for me. I didn't find the character development enjoyable and the plot didn't kick in until the last thirty percent of the book or so.

Even though one of the big plot points was getting MC's sister back, she's completely forgotten about often throughout the progression of the story.

  All in all it was enjoyable but not one of my favorite reads. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Gaslighting, Death, Kidnapping, and Trafficking

Moderate: Sexual content, Violence, Blood, and Emotional abuse

cady_sass's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Okay hear me out: I know, objectively, this is not very good. The writing is very lackluster and repetitive and the book as a whole lacked editing. BUT if you have a fairy world fantasy itch that can’t seem to get scratched, this will do it. I really enjoyed this, despite the predicability and eye-roll worthy protagonist. It’s fun! So sue me. You get exactly what you expect, in my humble opinion. 
Side note: there are a lot ( a LOT ) of reviews calling this an ACOTAR rip off and, while there are some minor similarities, I don’t feel that way at all. Sorry not sorry. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Medical content, Murder, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Violence, War, Alcohol, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Blood, Classism, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

ilka00's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Murder, Death, and Kidnapping

Minor: Homophobia

siglerbooknook's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

3.0

Personally I didn't enjoy this book. The premise was promising but the execution fell flat. The whole first half felt very much like ACOTAR fanfiction. 

And the ending was not satisfying for me. I guessed a lot of what was going to happen by chapter 10 and almost everything else by chapter 19. 

This felt like the miscommunication trope to the extreme which has never been a favorite. There were so many places where honesty could have made a better story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Violence, Trafficking, Slavery, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Confinement, Deportation, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Colonisation, Gaslighting, and Medical content

Minor: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Sexual content

bookishflower's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

2.75

This is a shameless a court of thorns and roses fan fiction, don’t believe me? You have the blond, spring prince and the dark, tattooed, dream wandering, shadow prince both fighting over the chosen one human girl who must free the lands from a curse. And surprise, surprise,

Sebastian/Tamlin is manipulative and evil.

Whatever team you’re on, I’m team single Brie! Give her a villain arc, let her

steal back her crown and get her revenge on everyone who manipulated her. Subvert the genre.

. The representation isn’t great, and the description of the goblins errs on problematic (while this is historic and not a new invention by Ryan,  not researching the history of antisemitism in depictions of goblins-especially after the discussions around j.k. Row*ing-feels sloppy). (However, I should add I am not a Jewish reviewer and you should always listen to own voice reviewers. If I am wrong please correct me). That being acknowledged, this is a fun guilty pleasure book, perfect for fans of acotar and those looking to get out of a reading slump. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Murder, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Slavery, Homophobia, and Trafficking

angelica02's review

adventurous fast-paced

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

2.0

 Overall I wasn’t really a fan, I liked the premise as I tend to like these sort of faire ya novels. However I just felt like the book was very similar to acotar but it wasn’t as well written as Sarah j Mass.

The start was very fast paced which I normally enjoy but I feel like I didn’t have enough time to care for the main character.

In regards to characters I didn’t really like Brie as I felt she was trying too hard to be like other girls, but did t really have a personality? It’s mentioned she likes reading towards the middle of the book, but it seems like it’s only used as a plot point, not really part of her character. It the start it also had a seen where she is a thief but it doesn’t really go in depth explaining how she got her skills and is not truely mentioned much, and as a thief she isn’t as subtle as I would think, therefore this seems to only be a trait added that wasn’t really thought through. Overall I thought Brie was very one dimensional and superficial.

Towards the love interests I don’t really have anything to say they seemed like the typical love interests in these sort of books.

In regards to plot I wasn’t that interested however the last 100 pages it started to pick up a bit so I enjoyed it a bit more.

Also wanted to comment that for a book the revolves around magic the magic system wasn’t very well explained and the rules seemed to contradict themselves quite a bit. The system just seemed to change whenever needed to benefit the characters. For example the goblins needing a price for information but answering many questions for one lock of hair? It just seemed like Brie needed to know something and the author couldn’t figure out another way of getting it to her.

No hate to the author just my opinion. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, and Sexual content

offbrandclubsoda's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Sexual content

Moderate: Abandonment, Death of parent, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, and Kidnapping

Minor: Genocide, Slavery, and Trafficking

politewriter's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-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? Yes

3.25

World building and immersion are amazingly well done. There’s lots of factions, characters, and lands. But despite this, I never felt confused or overloaded with information. But the Female Lead is so irritating. She’s not only naive, but denser than lead. She never asks the right questions, so much so that any foreshadowing becomes blatant and frustrating. It’s one thing to have an author guide the readers to future plot twists, and another to spoon feed them it with their nose pinched shut. I hope the supporting characters are treated better in the next book, and that the FL wises up.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Drug use, Racism, Sexism, Death of parent, Death, Slavery, Emotional abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Kidnapping, Abandonment, Alcohol, Blood, Confinement, Murder, Infidelity, Grief, and Gaslighting

Minor: Genocide, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Trafficking, War, and Cursing

elderflower's review against another edition

relaxing fast-paced

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

1.75

disappointed ☹️ 
Likes: 

• Hot romance and love interests
• Worldbuilding 
• Love triangle 
• Gorgeous cover

Dislikes: 

• Brie seemed to be “not like other girls” and was pretty annoying 
• Pretty cliché 
• Came across like it was trying hard to be cool but just succeeded at being annoying 
• Boring start
• Didn’t really capture my attention or feelings 
• Romantic pacing was jumpy and weird 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Cursing, Homophobia, Slavery, and Emotional abuse

more content warnings: drugged drink, cheating, guilt trips, manipulation