Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Vengeful by V.E. Schwab

57 reviews

snapweed's review against another edition

dark tense medium-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Death, Blood, Gun violence, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Animal death, Medical trauma, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Sexual assault

queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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? No

5.0

5 ⭐ CW: violence, gun violence, domestic abuse, child abuse, suicide, murder, sexual content, prescription drug misuse, torture, medical horror, descriptions of blood and gore 

Vengeful by V.E. Schwab is book 2 in the Villains duology. I loved this book just as much as the first one! Everyone is so delightfully awful, evil, and morally gray. 

This book doesn't focus as much on Victor Vale's pov, but we do still get to see what he's up to, but we get a lot of other pov chapters from some of the other characters, including some randos every now and then. Mostly we get POVs from Victor, Eli, Stell, Sydney, June, and Marcella. 

Since last book, Stell has created an organization called EON, ExtraOrdinary Neutralization, designed to hunt and contain EOs. Which brings us to the new EO introduced in this book, Marcella, a wife of a mob boss who has the ability to Ruin anything (metals rusts, wood decays, people shrivel into dust, etc.). She is deliciously wicked, gives no shits, and will not hide. Marcella wants power, and even though she is scary and a little bit (a lot a bit) of a sociopath, you can almost understand where she is coming from as a woman who has been only seen as a beautiful object with no say in anything. 

We get a lot more of Eli's backstory in this one, and it becomes quite clear that even before his forced near death experience, he was a psychopath. We also get more Sydney chapters this book, so we see how her ability has affected her in terms of aging (or lack of aging). This book kept me wanting more, and was difficult to put down. I flew through the end, because it was so fast paced. 

I loved these books! This definitely satisfies my TBR card prompt for Antagonist: a book your favorite villain would read. Since Victor is my favorite villain right now, I'd have to say he'd enjoy reading this, especially about Eli. I may have to look into borrowing the EO graphic novels now, since I'm not ready to let this world go. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Torture, Violence, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Child abuse, Suicide, Murder, Drug abuse, and Blood

Moderate: Sexual content

sunrae_booknook's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I loved this book so much. I usually am not a fan of book two but this was better than the first. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, Gun violence, Drug use, and Death

Minor: Chronic illness, Confinement, Animal death, Cursing, Gaslighting, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Violence

epsyphus's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

The new characters and old ones balanced out nicely; I thought new ones forced the old ones into very interesting situations. The dual timeline thing was a little more complicated with more characters, but it was still manageable. I'd kill to read the third book right now. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical trauma, Blood, Body horror, Drug abuse, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, and Gun violence

Moderate: Animal death

kaadee's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

This one blew me out of the fucking water, dude. From the first page and Marcella’s death to the very end! I fell in love with Victor, which I didn’t like him before. I felt sorry for Eli which I honestly didn’t expect to. I enjoyed June A LOT but I feel her character didn’t have enough background! I need more. I need more. I need more. I love Sydney and Mitch. I love that Sydney and Victor have a specific special relationship. This book really brought the thunder. I was hoping the whole time for an enemies to lovers thing with Victor and Eli but of course, no. They were so in love with each other and they just had bitter ex energy the whole time. I love the way they thought about each other, even if it was in a very fucked up way.

Eagerly waiting for the next book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Death, Medical trauma, Violence, Blood, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Medical content, and Murder

Moderate: Stalking, Drug use, and Toxic friendship

thewildmageslibrary's review against another edition

4.5

 4.5 rounded up! I'm so glad that Victorious is coming, that ending sure is a hanger. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Murder, Death, Confinement, Violence, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Drug abuse, Gore, and Drug use

Minor: Animal death

thebankofbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Death, Physical abuse, Sexism, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Blood, Body horror, Chronic illness, Medical trauma, Police brutality, Sexual content, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Animal death, and Suicide

jennastopreading's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Medical trauma, Death, and Medical content

Moderate: Abandonment

sarah_cameron's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book was perfect from start to end! It kept me constantly on the edge of my seat and was such a great follow up to the first book. Can’t recommend highly enough 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Gun violence, Sexism, Torture, Death, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Alcohol, Gaslighting, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide attempt, Medical content, Police brutality, Self harm, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Misogyny

Minor: Stalking, Animal death, Cursing, Vomit, and Car accident

alexiab's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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

3.75

This book was almost on par with the first in terms of general storytelling method, except I found it lacked a fair bit of what made the first book so compelling. 

The shift in focus away from Victor and Eli, and spending so much time on backstory for new characters that still didn’t feel important, threw a bit of a wrench in the story for me. Of all the new characters, I found June the most interesting and I think she got the least amount of development. I couldn’t find it in me to care about Marcella, and I wish more had gone into Sydney and Mitch, or even more time with Victor and Eli. 

Overall I still enjoyed this book and I love what I did get for Victor and Eli, but a lot of the side stuff felt like filler that wasn’t necessary, especially since a lot of it clearly won’t be brought into the third book when it’s eventually released. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Self harm, Torture, and Violence