Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy

15 reviews

blewballoon's review against another edition

challenging dark sad slow-paced

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

1.0

I struggled with this one. I really wanted to like it, I went to Catholic school and I knew some pretty cool nuns. There was a lot of potential in the premise. I thought this would be a fun time, despite being a murder mystery. It wasn't fun, it wasn't funny, and it didn't have anything new or interesting to say. It was just a series of awful people either doing awful things or having awful things done to them while the author describes how hot and humid it is every other sentence. (Do check the content warnings, there is a lot of dark stuff here.) The book is written in a stream of conscious sort of way, so I would be in a scene and then three paragraphs later the narrator was still musing, reminiscing about the past in a vague way, and talking about how hot it is, and I would have forgotten what was even happening. This was made worse by listening on audiobook and not being able to just flip back or skip over, but I do think Mara Wilson did a good job narrating the material she was given. Sister Holiday makes incredibly bad choices, is selfish and hard to root for, and doesn't really figure anything out that isn't completely obvious. The word "sleuthing" is heavily overused by her, especially considering that she doesn't actually do any. I would say the diversity is good, but because the diverse people are flat or terrible, I'm not sure the representation does anyone a service. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Infidelity

Moderate: Addiction, Blood, Drug abuse, Police brutality, Rape, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Violence, Drug use, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Cancer, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcoholism, Pedophilia, Incest, and Self harm

egmamaril's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.75

I rated this higher because I really appreciated seeing the social-justicr Catholic church (and nuns) I know represented, but the actual prose and mystery were not my cup of tea. However, it is setting up an interesting duo and I love Sister Holiday as a queer version of the troubled noir detective. I will remain optimistic for the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Death of parent, and Infidelity

Moderate: Homophobia and Rape

Minor: Child abuse, Pregnancy, and Sexism

madsw14's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide, Bullying, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Cancer, Drug use, Death, Rape, Animal death, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Murder, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Terminal illness, and Addiction

Minor: Infidelity, Incest, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Fatphobia, Self harm, Confinement, and Sexual harassment

eloise_bradbooks's review against another edition

mysterious tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.75

This book is about a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed queer nun, Sister Holiday, who tries to understand who set the school she teaches at on fire... Especially as more and more fires are appearing, and someone seems to be framing Sister Holiday... We also get to learn about who she was before becoming a nun, living a very queer and ver punk life.

Although some elements of this story are quite difficult to read about (please check trigger warnings), I did want to keep reading more about Sister Holiday and what was going on.

I'll admit I felt like I could have cared a bit more... There was a little something that felt distant, like i couldn't quite connect.
I'm not a huge fan of going back into the past to find out more about how people got to be who they are today. I'm always wanting to just get back to the present story, which is a shame because I actually feel like the backstory here, is actually much more interesting than the present one ... 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, Murder, Infidelity, Homophobia, Child death, Suicide attempt, and Grief

Minor: Addiction

littlelili1320's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

It took a bit for me to get into this. It could be due to my biases against Christianity caused by my upbringing. I'm also bisexual. I just found it hard to believe that such a queer, "punk" girl would be so religious. I can understand wanting to escape & become a nun after the trauma, but even before that she had a bunch of Christian tattoos & spoke scripture while fooling around with a girl. I found myself rolling my eyes at both her & the nuns. 

Thankfully, more of her ideas about God come forth & it's far more believable. The book also picked up pace. I did guess the cuplrit but that's fine. An animal does die, which seemed unecessarry. I did overall enjoy the book. I look forward to reading the next one. If she does decide to take her vows & she doesn't secretly act on her sexuality I might get pissed lol. I really don't think it would be believable.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, and Homophobia

Moderate: Rape, Incest, and Infidelity

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Cancer, Sexual assault, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Homophobia, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Car accident, Confinement, Death, Sexism, and Toxic relationship