Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

65 reviews

lectora21's review

adventurous dark slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Stalking, Self harm, Vomit, Drug use, Toxic relationship, and Violence

libraryghost's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicide attempt, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Blood

Moderate: Death of parent, Gun violence, Grief, and Death

Minor: Child death

lily_kruse's review

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Blood, Death, Suicide, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Child death, Medical content, Vomit, Cursing, and Death of parent

diarythebookwyrm's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

Once again, Seanan McGuire proves why she’s one of my favorite authors to date. This has the same kind of evocative and lyrical prose as her writing as Mira Grant, but the same kind of wild things in the real world feel of the Toby Daye series. I don’t know what it is about Seanan and Berkeley, but she really needs to stop putting that poor city through fantasy nonsense. I’m fascinated by this world and excited for the next book. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gun violence, Blood, and Violence

oliverreeds's review

adventurous challenging dark slow-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

5.0

no idea what happened. i loved every second

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Murder, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Car accident, Child death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Torture, and Violence

dulceserenidad's review

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicide attempt, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Child abuse and Child death

Minor: Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, and Death of parent

cheyennamarshall's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

I'm actually in awe of how this book made me feel. It took me a second to get into the world in the beginning, but after that the pace just never let me feel okay with the fact that I had to put it down. There wasn't a single dry period. Every plot twist or show of the author's hand through the length of the book make me feel almost too overwhelmed to keep reading, but in the exact way I would want. This book is absolutely rock solid and definitely in the top three books I've ever read. It almost makes me ill. I will have to start the Wayward Children series...

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

asexual rep, aromantic rep

mfrank's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

 I love Seanan McGuire and her writing so much! I was so happy to read this and it made me happy to go through it! I loved Roger and Dodger so much. They felt very real to me. I think Seanan McGuire is so great at creating characters. For me, the only reason that this was four stars instead of five stars is the climax scenes. I think Seanan McGuire is great at creating characters and building narrative tension, but I've noticed in a few of her books that I've read that the climax sometimes fails to deliver on that tension.

I really hated the fake-out climax. It felt like we gained nothing from that. They would have manifested without that. And the fact that we thought both Leigh and Erin died and then neither of them died made me so upset. Like, what was the point of that scene if it accomplished literally nothing for them. Also, the face that Erin then actually died made me so upset. It felt a bit weird too. Like, that Erin was just too broken to survive without her brother? It felt off to the message about sibling love. Especially, that Erin basically chose to kill herself, sort of? I know she didn't literally, but it felt at the end like she was making the choice to die rather than that Reed actually killed her. Just those last like 30 pages felt weird overall.

Despite those few issues I had with the book, I loved the overall story enough to sort of make up for those moments where I didn't. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Suicide

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

vaxis's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.75

I sometimes wonder if I'm just too dense or if I missed something with Seanan's world building, or if the reason I don't fully feel like I understand what's happening is how it's been explained. This was sometimes an issue, but not too much.

There's a heavy emphasis on their headspace and how they come to the decisions they make. There's some excellent prose.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicide attempt, and Blood

Moderate: Death of parent

Natural disasters

earthquake

leanne_miron's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Self harm, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Child death, Confinement, and Gun violence