Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy

50 reviews

maddiereadswords'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

1.5

Read this for a queer book club, and honestly I might have DNF-ed if I hadn't wanted to finish it for the discussion. I think part of it is just that I'm not a huge fan of hard-boiled noir in general, so it's already starting at a disadvantage, but also this book still overall felt like a draft; there are a lot of interesting ideas and concepts, but nothing feels fully fleshed out. All the characters with the exception of Holiday feel completely one-dimensional, and speaking of Holiday, her backstory is so drawn-out that by the time we got to what actually happened to send her to New Orleans, I hardly even cared anymore, but also the backstory was so ridiculously over the top and horrifying that I didn't even want it. Literally the last hundred or so pages of this book felt so needlessly brutal, and it just left me so uncomfortable at the end. Also as other reviewers have mentioned, there are basic things that are just wrong? Everything about diabetes, as well as the fact that there are A TON of Catholic schools in New Orleans and the surrounding area, both of which feel like things that should have gotten picked up on in another round of editing and revision. 

Literally the only reason this book is higher than 1 star (which literally just means I finished it) is that every once in a while she would drop an absolute BANGER of a line about Catholicism or the intersection of religion and queerness, and as a lesbian who grew up Catholic and is still nebulously religious, I LOVED that. I wanted so much more of that!! But instead most of what I got was a shoddy, boring mystery with forgettable characters, and a whole lot of trauma right at the end. I know this is meant to be the first in a series, and I truly hope that time and practice can smooth out some of the issues I had with this book. I could see myself potentially picking up another Sister Holiday mystery in the future just to see how on earth she moves on from this book, but I'm not optimistic that I'll like it any better than this one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Sexual assault, Cancer, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, and Homophobia

lady_bountiful's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Drug use, Sexual content, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, and Animal death

Minor: Suicide, Child abuse, and Incest

erinoco's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Death, Violence, Homophobia, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Incest, Mental illness, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Hate crime, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Police brutality

tadasborne's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death

kyliereads341's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Rape, Animal death, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, and Addiction

Moderate: Transphobia, Sexual harassment, Racism, Terminal illness, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Suicide

Minor: Terminal illness, Child abuse, Death of parent, Self harm, and Toxic relationship

brigettes's review against another edition

fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Mental illness, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide attempt, Drug abuse, Child abuse, Death, Pedophilia, Infidelity, Homophobia, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Drug use

Minor: Religious bigotry, Grief, and Vomit

greatexpectations77's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious tense slow-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

3.25

I would read another in this series because the premise is interesting. I also appreciated the reveal. But it had a little much ultra-heavy hinting to the backstory until I wanted to scream "JUST TELL ME WHAT TO HECK HAPPENED TO YOU A FEW YEARS AGO GOD." I also felt like 7/8 of the book was kind of pressing forward and at a pretty slow pace and then the last 1/8 was really rushed and everything happened at once. Okay, and I also felt like the running themes and motifs were much farther on the smack-you-in-the-face side of the spectrum than the oh-i-could-see-that side. Also I think I wanted more fighting against god, but that's my personal issue. But I think it has potential! And I would listen to Mara Wilson read an ingredient list, and I'm not even kidding.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Bullying, Cancer, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Infidelity, Grief, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Mental illness, Alcoholism, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Violence

Minor: Sexual harassment, Suicide, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Incest, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Addiction, Child abuse, Sexual content, Car accident, and Confinement

Please avoid if fire freaks you out!

westcoaster05's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I really enjoyed this story of a non-traditional nun. A queer musician who is a PI in her spare time? Sign me up!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Cancer, and Death of parent

aceofknives's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Hate crime, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Religious bigotry, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Car accident

Minor: Rape, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Cancer, and Self harm

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