Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

20 reviews

ginnydtaylor's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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navayiota's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It gave me Secret History-but they grew up vibes. Now I really want to start a map collection.. 

Two things that bothered me were how stereotypically not-like-other-girls Nel is, (petite, unruly hair, big glasses, big cardigans, not chic, bookish, quiet but feisty) i struggled to imagine her that way and the wording always prompted an eye roll from me. The second thing was just how easily everyone spilled their past to Nel even though it was the first time they had seen her in 2+ decades, and the fact that they included all their petty drama. It completely broke immersion for me whenever someone who was prev ously reserved started talking about what was going on in their relationship and even their sex lives. I liked the story but the way it was conveyed to the reader felt weird.
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spineofthesaurus's review against another edition

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mysterious
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atamano's review against another edition

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

3.0

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allapaz's review against another edition

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

3.5

thrilling mysterious dark academic, a worthy and wonderful adventure, I could see myself rating higher on a reread if some plot holes are resolved by me reading versus audiobook-ing as woof that’s a lot of details and characters for my oatmeal brain to remember without being able to flip back a page
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livwoods's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book got me out of my reading slump. What a fantastic, intriguing story about maps and their power to bring people together, or, unfortunately, drive them apart. 
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ejanephillips's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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cookiecat73's review

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

2.0

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caseythereader's review against another edition

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

4.25

 - THE CARTOGRAPHERS is part mystery, part ode to libraries and curation. I was drawn in right from the start, happily along for the ride as this strange tale unraveled.
- To be honest, I could see where the plot was going pretty much the whole time, but Shepherd's writing was so cozy and the characters so real that it didn't matter if I figured it out before they did.
- This is the kind of book that I would love to see turned into a movie: the mechanics of the unreality elements would lend themselves so perfectly to the screen. So would the plot twists, tbh, but I won't give those away here! 
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mari_books's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I love a good mystery in a museums/library with ancient relics. This book clearly draws inspiration from A Secret History. I thought the story was fast paced, with an interesting cast of characters and a plot that kept you hooked. The only areas I thought the book kind of got distracted were in explaining
Wally’s motivation for wanting to keep the map a secret. And killing so many people?? And in the letter from Nell’s parents which just tried to spell out why Tam lived in the secret town for 30 years which seemed clumsy especially after all the careful retelling of the other Cartographers pov.
Additionally I didn’t love the magic realism part of the book - some of that was probably lost on me just trying to understand the dynamic between the different characters. Didn’t feel Felix was super useful either….he just didn’t seem developed 
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