Reviews tagging 'Child death'

One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig

45 reviews

tkatt20's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

Sometimes I find that when I really like a book I don't have a lot to say review wise, this is exactly one of those cases. I finished this a couple of weeks ago and waited to do a review because I thought the words might come to me, but they never did. The writing was solid, I loved the characters, setting, magic system, everything. This is honesty all I want in a YA/New adult fantasy. For my Teen Wolf fans, this book reminds me of season 3 with the nogitsune, to try to give an idea of the vibes between the FMC and the "Nightmare", which was my all-time favorite season btw. This was def a vibe read for me and I loved it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Child death

Moderate: Death of parent and Abandonment

Minor: Sexual content, Vomit, and Alcohol

kinsportch's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Child death, Terminal illness, and Death

Moderate: Confinement

Minor: Sexual content and Death of parent

briannagriffin567's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Genocide, Death, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Classism, Abandonment, Terminal illness, Sexual content, Religious bigotry, and Child death

pagesihavenotyetread's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Genocide, Blood, Violence, Abandonment, Confinement, Sexual content, Child death, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, and Vomit

spatterson7's review against another edition

dark 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Blood

Minor: Death of parent, Death, Child death, and Alcohol

mzquirk's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Confinement, Bullying, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual content, and Violence

jas_thompson's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

5.0

This book will live rent free in my head—kind of fitting since the FMC has a nightmare living in hers! I already wish I could read it again for the first time!! The riddles embedded into the story were captivating. Such a unique magic system, like nothing I’ve read before.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping and Child death

emsavors's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Police brutality, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Torture, Abandonment, Physical abuse, Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Classism, Mental illness, Cursing, Death of parent, and Forced institutionalization

skillyillian's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense 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? Yes

4.5

Ugh god this book is SUCH a great read. I read it in paperback and I went through three highlighters and a ton of tabs annotating it. It starts off a little slow plot-wise but the world, magic, and characters drew me in so completely that I hardly even noticed slow points.

Mild spoilers ahead, big spoilers will be tagged

What I really enjoyed about the world building was how the author sticks to her guns about the isolation of Blunder. They don't, can't, travel beyond it, so there's not a single mention of the rest of the world. It's so well done. We only ever see Blunder, but that means it's fully developed with it's own culture, traditions, superstitions, and history. The world is steeped in lore.

The magic system here is so incredibly unique and well thought out, I can't get over it. An infectious mist from a vengeful deity is such a badass way to give your characters magic, and having each person get magic unique to them after the infection just adds to the coolness of it all. Then to add the Cards on top of that? Consider me obsessed. The whole idea of balance, and the way the characters hold it in a place of reverence as much as they hold their deity in a place of fear, is so well done. If the deity hasn't exacted her spiteful balance yet, the people will, in whatever way they think is best. The creativity here is off the charts.

The characters feel so real. Being in Elspeth's head, watching her co-exisg with the Nightmare because she has no other choice, was such a great idea. Ravyn and his family have the same motivation but you can see how it affects each of them individually. The romance felt a bit fast but I didn't really mind it all that much 🤷🏻‍♀️

The foreshadowing and plot thickening is really well done. My only real gripe with that is that I felt like plot twists such as

the nightmare being the shepherd king, and Ravyn and his family being direct descendants from him

were pretty spelled out and elspeth still didn't catch on despite it revolving around the creature living inside her head who dropped every possible hint about what was to come. Like she just, didn't connect the dots, or didn't even really try a ton? And normally that would bother me more but that's usually when characters are preached as geniuses and still can't see what's going on right in front of them (sorrengail 🙄). Elspeth isn't touted as her generation's genius detective prodigy so I was more miffed than actually mad about it.

I like that the author left a lot of different loose threads for the second book to finish. I'm not super far into the next one but I can already see the loose ends from the first one being pulled into play and it feels really well done.

Overall, this book is just fuckin incredible. The plot, the people, the world building, the incredibly unique and mysterious magic system, and the (albeit kinda fast) romance. I ate this up and enjoyed every minute of it. I do wish there was more diversity in the characters, and that elspeth was a little less oblivious to what's going on around her (and in her head). But besides those and the quick romance, I have no complaints. None. No notes, no crumbs. Gillig knocked it out of the fuckin park here. Even when the foreshadowing felt kind of not super hard to solve at times, it was still so well executed that I really enjoyed each of the reveals. And there was still plenty of things that surprised me. The action was great, the consequences of people's choices were logical, there's just so much I loved here.

2024 is me getting back in my romantasy era and this is such a dope way to start it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Gore, Murder, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Alcohol and Terminal illness

Minor: Death of parent and Fire/Fire injury

ellawilkinson's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Child death, Death, Cursing, Gore, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail