Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

17 reviews

jackieyvette's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Constanta, I would have never treated you like that girl! 
This book was a bright light after a week of slumming through my last book at sloth speed. It’s was dark and cryptic and sad, but also the three are so caring and loving to each other it makes you see them for who they are and not what they’re become. 
Read the TW for this book though there is a lot to deal with. 
It’s a super quick read though I finished it in one sitting.  

Crying score: No, but yes. But no. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Gore, Misogyny, Grief, Infidelity, Murder, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Torture, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Death, Sexism, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Body horror, Cannibalism, Confinement, and Emotional abuse

clairew97's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Blood, Gore, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Body shaming, Confinement, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Bullying, Death, and Grief

nat_montego's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting

Moderate: Confinement, Blood, Bullying, and Domestic abuse

readsandrants's review against another edition

fast-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? It's complicated

4.0

I thought the writing was absolutely beautiful and I loved what it had to say about power dynamics and controlling partners and whatnot but I didn’t otherwise care for the actual story playing out.

Like oh my god just read this writing.

“I never dreamed it would end like this, my lord: your blood splashing hot flecks onto my nightgown and pouring in rivulets onto our bedchamber floor. But creatures like us live a long time. There is no horror left in this world that can surprise me. Eventually, even your death becomes its own sort of inevitability.”
“I will render you as you really were, neither cast in pristine stained glass or unholy fire. I will make you into nothing more than a man, tender and brutal in equal measure, and perhaps in doing so I will justify myself to you.”
“You did not let me keep my name, so I will strip you of yours. In this world, you are what I say you are, and I say you are a ghost, a long night’s fever dream that I have finally woken up from. I say you are the smoke-wisp memory of a flame, thawing ice suffering under an early spring sun, a chalk ledger of debts being wiped clean.”
“Laying with her made me feel so vibrantly alive. It was almost enough to make me forget that I was already dead.”
“ I had become intimately acquainted with violence and the sins of the world, but I had not come away unblemished. Only violence felt like holiness to me anymore.”
And these are only a selected few  from the first half of the book. 

Also a little mad that they changed the original beautiful cover and you can’t get it anywhere :(

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Blood, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Toxic relationship, Violence, Gaslighting, and Emotional abuse

celestriakle's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? Yes

4.5

Read this book for prose alone. The language is poetic and beautiful and flows so nicely that it makes this a quick read; I finished the last two sections in one sitting. The intensity of the relationships each "wife" has to Dracula is gripping. It's fascinating to see how the dynamics slowly shift over the long timespans of the book, and how differently each character reacts to Dracula's abuse.

The main weakness of the book however is the characters relationships outside of Dracula. The book ends with

all 3 in a romantic relationship, and supposedly they fell in love this whole time, but they never have very much chemistry. They read far more like sister-wives trying to protect each other from Dracula than lovers with their own relationship outside him, with nothing to keep each other together once he's gone.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Grief, Confinement, Bullying, Blood, Gore, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Classism, Domestic abuse, and Death

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Murder, Abandonment, and Incest

Minor: War, Homophobia, Death of parent, Torture, and Misogyny

I tagged for incest, but it's not true incest: all four main characters are not related, but are frequently described with family terminology, despite being in a romantic relationship. Alexi and Constanta in particular are constantly described as mother/son, with Alexi's youth compared to everyone else frequently mentioned, but they still end up romantically entangled and share a sex scene.

anapthine's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Murder, Violence, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Death, Confinement, Bullying, Blood, and Toxic relationship

Minor: War, Incest, and Fire/Fire injury

notpresent22's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Where to begin with this book. Easily a modern classic, Gibson has an incredible way with words that left me agape at every sentence. The characters where incredibly compelling and the toxic relationships between them even more so. This is a queer feminist take on the brides of Dracula, focusing on the toxic relationship and the liberation from it. Incredible!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Murder, Misogyny, Gaslighting, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, and Bullying