Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Yellow Jessamine

Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling

14 reviews

spadedigsbutts's review against another edition

dark 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

3.75

This was a short read but pretty decent! The story takes place in a city under siege by a new non-royal rebel government where our MC is is part of the old noble class barely keeping things together as the city starves. A mysterious and seemingly supernatural sickness strikes and our MC is at the heart of it for unknown reasons. Will she get to the bottom of it?? Hell no, she's a self-serving mercantile recluse that just wants to keep as much as her power as possible while avoiding eye contact with the 15 elephants in the room! If you like slow-paced character studies with deeply flawed characters and lesbians, you will enjoy this book. If you like lingering dread, tension, eerie seemingly supernatural elements and apothecary aesthetic, you'll enjoy this book. Overall, the only complaint would be the ending felt a little rushed and I wish we'd spent more time on some aspects of the end, but I think it's a matter of opinion if you find it suitable or not.

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hexedmaiden's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

3.0

Another book on my list from 2023 that involved some plant horror. In this book we follow Evelyn Perdanu who is the sole heiress to a company in the fictional 1800s. Besides being a rich company owner she sells plant concoctions on the side. Some seem for medical reasons and others. Soon bodies start popping up around her and we later find out why.

This story was definitely not what I expected. I knew it was spooky, set in the Victorian era and there was queer rep. I was shook that there was plant horror, or rather our evil monster was made of plants. The ending was bittersweet and I wish it was more of a happy ending but all in all I still enjoyed it.

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reka111's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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

3.75

Something had come back on her ship, looking for her. And it was spreading

This book was so fucked up, but in the best sense of the word. I wouldn't really say it won me over, but by the end when everything became clear to me, I enjoyed it a lot more, especially after I found out why this book was given that title (imaginary what can I say). This book was very dark and scary, basically it was a bit similar to The Poison Diaries in terms of atmosphere, but not quite.

The characters were relatively okay, but I especially liked Evelyn (the main character) because she was closer to a

villain

than a hero and I could identify with her surprisingly easily, because it is very rare to read from this point of view. Perhaps I simply understood her suffering, I understood the reason for her actions, and looking back, I would do the same now. Unfortunately, the others didn't really get a role, so I can't write about them. The love story was a bit forced for me (there wasn't really a love story), but it was cute.

It was a good book, but the content was equal to zero, we stumbled through all 135 pages, which is exactly why it took me longer than usual to read it. As I said, the plot was boring, but at least it was interesting and most of the chapters ended with cliffhangers, which kept my spirits up.

This wasn't the story of a grieving widow or a witch, it was a woman's story who did bad things in a bad world but did everything she could to keep her soul.

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typedtruths's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

i love strange books. i love wicked women. i love caitlin starling... but this didn't quite do it for me.

➸ Trigger warnings for

misogyny, attempted arranged marriage recounted, domestic abuse mentioned, alcohol consumption, drug abuse (on-page), smoking, miscarriage mentioned, body horror, emesis, physical injuries including eye trauma (intentional but nonconsensual chemically-induced vision loss), plague, murder of a father and brothers recounted, murder and attempted murder (on-page), physical assault mentioned, whipping, torture, poisoning (theme), kidnapping and captivity, and fire*.

*Context: A boat full of infected sailors is set on fire to prevent a plague outbreak. In the opening scene, the protagonist observes the boat fire from the shore

.

▷ Representation: Evelyn (mc) & Violetta (sc) are sapphic.

Blog • Trigger Warning Database • StoryGraph

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applepieandeve's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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aardwyrm's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-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

4.0

All atmosphere, and it's good atmosphere, so it doesn't matter too much that the very little plot there is wouldn't hold together in a stiff breeze. The supernatural stuff is entirely mysterious until a giant info dump at the end, which is genre standard and kind of how Starling does it, in my experience, but it's perfectly respectable. Evelyn herself is a bit of a weak link, as she's presented as a conniving, ruthless strategist, but on page all we see her do is act in the most suspicious way possible and make the worst available decisions no matter how little sense they make. But the vibes are the star of the book. All the grim, oozing decadence is very effective.

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cait's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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bethsiekierawalker's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

3.75

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elizalavenza's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.5

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madarauchiha's review against another edition

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slow-paced

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

0.75

❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜 my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara 💜 💙 💚 💛 🧡 ❤️

I don't like the power imbalance and vague attempt at a very white cis woman version of lesbianism. I dare say there isn't really a lesbian romance in this book. Mainly because

it’s never stated outright, and it’s barely implied until SOMEONE ELSE. POSESSING THIS GIRL GAY LIL BODY. TELLS HER FUCKING LOVE INTEREST THAT THE NOW-DEAD D-KE WAS IN LOVE WITH HER ALL ALONG.

Her being Violetta's employer and superior and MC of the book. Also this is like a historical fantasy so the employee love interest cannot really consent without issue. Also this is set in a pandemic so like that’s another issue of being unable to consent. You say no to anything all you’re out on the streets catching idk, piss shit out your ass to death disease.

Also what fucking relationship? The employer/MC has

Violetta, the employee love interest, doing gross shit like burying murder victims and changing bedsheets soiled with excrement?

That's not a partner helping her partner, that's employee obeying her master's orders.

Like other than the employer [mc] going on about how invaluable her servant was there was zero emotional connection. There was no fucking relationship. And I harp on that because it’s sold as a sapphic short story. Or it was to me, anyways.

i hate this. Also this book made no goddam sense and was up its own ass a lot. The vibes are fun, I got real Dishonored 1 and 2 video game vibes from it. But if it weren't for me being familiar with said Dishonored game this novella would be very flat and uninteresting. It has a very pretty veneer of aesthetics and cohesively purple writing, and that's it. You start thinking too hard on the plot and it all falls to shit.

It also vaguely reminded me of The Unraveled Kingdom by Rowenna Miller. Not necessarily a bad thing, but when reading a novella makes you want to read other books instead... hm. I really wanted to enjoy this book because horror AND parasite based horror? Amazing. The only other decent horror/scifi book with parasite horror I really enjoyed was The Breach by M T Hill. I've been dying for more, honestly.

The other thing I hate about it is the status quo, and the ending. Alright ok so the big bad, very distant government

was um. Overthrown? Overnight? You really telling me that some parasite ghost creature genocided the current ruling government because some upper class rich white woman is sad her pet lesbian love interest got killed because she abandoned her in order to save her own rich white ass? I get that this is a novella but maybe don't put this drastic shit which obviously takes time to happen into your novella. Seriously, overnight? Or smt? Like this is the age where ships still use clothe sails. How are you going to get word out? That quickly? I use question marks a lot because this plot is incredibly flimsy and if I use hard stop period marks everything will collapse.

Non spoiler of the above. Authors, especially white authors, are terrified of changing the status quo. They can write about revolution, and overcoming the Bad Guys, but ultimately the Good Guy MCs they write of simply replace the Bad Guys and maintain the status quo. White authors cannot write revolution or societal change because they don't understand what changes need to be made because they are part of what needs to be changed.

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