Reviews with content warning for Blood - Charm

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Charm by Tracy Wolff

12 reviews

cxsmiccxtie's review against another edition

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dark emotional 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? No

4.25

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toastyghosty13's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

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

2.25

I was so excited to read this book because I love both of the main characters in it from the rest of the series, especially because this shows time that was missed while trapped in Grace's head. This shows How Grace and Hudson get to know each other before she forgets everything, and so I was ecstatic to read this and see the parts that have been missing from the plot. I was pretty disappointed.

I said this about the previous book in the series and I will say it again: this book could have been cut to be about 50%-60% shorter. So much of it is inner monologuing that is repetitive and all about the realization that something is so great and awe inspiring, but that something tends to be the same thing each time. It becomes boring and cumbersome because you start to speed read to get through reading the same 5 paragraphs of these monologues since they are pretty much the same thing just thrown into a thesaurus. I had such high hopes that the monologuing would improve based on the praise I have heard about this book, but there are only so many times I can bare to read through Grace coming to the realization that Hudson is great or vice versa.

I wanted to like this book so badly, but it is also a farcry from what this series started as. This series started as a more fun (imo) version of a twilight fan fic, and now it has spiraled to include worlds and events that seemingly come out of nowhere for the sake of having something happen. This time, the story took place in the shadow realm. This setting had so much potential for cool new characters and mythological creature types, but ended up just being purple people. This felt like a slice of life episode that was 800 pages long where Grace and Hudson are on the run, yet have the time to stop at cute farms and cosplay as a cottage core family for a few weeks, before moving to a village and doing basically the same thing there but as small town folk. There is nothing inherently wrong with this type of story, except for the fact that no one needs to read 800 pages of it. I am not reading this story to read about Grace trying to work at a bakery; I would read Legends and Lattes if I wanted that. I am reading this story to learn more about how they try to stop the end of the world from whatever threat there is.

We do learn a bit about the threat in the shadow realm,

the shadow queen, but not nearly enough for how much other fluff there is. From what I can tell, the shadow queen is the main villain in the next and final book of this series, so it was super annoying when we barely got anything about her.

I probably will read the last book of this series since I have come so far, but I need to take a break for a while before I do.

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kaylameaux's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny tense medium-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

3.0

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rinku's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
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

1.0

Yeah, I’m done with the Crave series after reading Charm. Everything that I disliked about <i>Court</i> is even more amplified here and made me realize that I simply don’t care about the series anymore. This book was more tedious, more mundane, and in all honesty just unnecessary.

This book takes place between Crave and Crush and tells us about the time when Grace was trapped in Hudson’s lair. Like other reviewers said, a novella would’ve been fine, but this is a full 600 pages long book where barely anything worthwhile or interesting happens. The biggest problem with the plot is that we already know what will happen. I assume everyone here has read the other books in the series, but just in case:

We already know that Grace’s connection to Jaxon is gone, we know that she will fall for Hudson and forget him afterwards, and we know that she will get out of the situation

. Especially since we already know how this book will end, there are just no stakes there. The stakes are additionally low because it takes the villains such a long time to act on their evil plans™. Additionally, many things about the plot just didn’t make sense and dragged the book in an unnecessary way. If I didn’t buy the book, I wouldn’t have finished it because it was so boring. Hence, I started skimming the last 150 pages because I just wanted the book just to end.

I’m probably one of the few people that read this series for the plot and not for the romance but in this book, the romance takes up the biggest portion of the book. It’s also so cliché with moments like the one bed or one character having to patch up the other one where one of them has to take their shirt off. I said at least “for God’s sake!” out loud for like ten times because the romance was so cringy. The romance thus bored me as well, especially because we barely see any development until Grace suddenly says that she can’t live without Hudson anymore. This is mainly caused by the random big time skips in the novel, namely one of eight weeks, six months, and two months. Furthermore, their relationship is just so immature and silly, especially with those stupid pranks and arguments.

This is the first book of the Crave series where I’ve read the original and not a translated version, and I have to admit that at least the chapter puns work better in English. Still, the writing wasn’t that great; there’s more than one instance of letting out the breath she didn’t know she was holding.

The other big problem this novel has is that Hudson and Grace are just not interesting as characters; they’re in my opinion the most boring characters of the Crave series. Still, we spend the first 150 pages and at least a third of the book only with them which was just so boring. Grace is in general so annoying here. She’s overdramatic, acts stupid, and is even jealous of a random shadow that befriends Hudson which is just so ridiculous. Besides this, she insults Hudson as being mentally disordered, yikes. Her thoughts go so often in circle, especially concerning Hudson. She always has to tell us what a hard life he has and that we all should feel sorry for him – okay, shut up, I get it. It is so hypocritical how she suddenly decides that Jaxon is her ex and justifies what is essentially cheating, but okay.

Like I’ve mentioned in my review for Court: Hudson doesn’t feel like a real person to me but instead like a wish fulfilment fantasy. He literally can do everything, including now playing the guitar and singing. Of course, he also has a big loft and wears expensive clothing. In this novel, he’s back to his arrogant and rude self that he had in Crush, and I absolutely hated it. Also, I don’t want to throw this word around randomly, but Hudson definitely gave me some toxic vibes. He looks through Grace’s phone without her permission, takes everything away from her so she can’t defend herself (and is dependent on him?), and throws away all her food which was one of the few sources of enjoyment for her. He’s just as annoying as Grace, I guess they’re truly made for each other. His POV added nothing to the story for me. There were barely any (interesting) characters in this novel besides them; the villain is comically evil with the random evil laugh, telling our heroes his plans and a very cliché motivation.

Like I’ve said above: Charm should’ve been a novella. I don’t care enough about Grace and Hudson; they’re too annoying and immature for my taste. I just can’t stand any other book with them and the ridiculous plot.

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zanazy's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny slow-paced

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

2.5

This was advertised to be the story of the four months Grace spent in stone as a gargoyle with Hudson, their love story. I had such high hopes, but instead of being romantic, the four months were a total train wreck of weird and forced storylines that made no sense. Rather than being a story centered on Grace and Hudson’s story, it was a story driven by the craziest plot ever.

Having read Court, it’s clear then author needed to fill in some gaps before her final book and since us fans were clamoring for the story of the missing four months, she meshed the two. Doing a huge disservice to Grace and Hudson, the first 1/3 of the book which was the bulk of the time they spent in Hudson’s lair was painfully slow to read. Nothing added to their story, it felt rushed, and very forced. Hudson realizes she is his mate right away, but hides it from Grace. Eventually telling her that her mating bond with Jaxon is gone. Although he talks about all his education and sees the strings in Grace, he just knows she’s not human. This makes no sense as we already learned gargoyles and strings are a big part in the other books. Then they enter the shadow world and live there seemingly happily and rent free in an inn, finding jobs, making friends, all while unaware the mayor of this city is basically a fraud and using them… Hudson being so smart misses all the warning signs. Grace finds out she’s a gargoyle and within minutes flies and does a bunch of shit she struggles with in the other books… Hudson is Mr. OMG I should have seen this coming when shit hits the fan, and Grace is a badass fighter, which isn’t bad but way too rushed for someone who at this point in the story has no training or anything. Everything Grace does which should be a first is way too easy for her. The side characters who become important in this life Grace and Hudson live are likable and make up for a lot.

Some things are better left to the imagination and this book is proof of that. If the author needed to tell us more about the shadow world for her next book, find a different way. Grace and Hudson’s story was not the place to do it in and ruined their relationship and growth in the previous books.

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dkgreads's review against another edition

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adventurous funny slow-paced

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

3.75

Not my favorite book in the series, but it was nice to see what happened during those missing months. I was mostly annoyed that we went back to Book 1 Grace and lost all of her growth, but I get why that makes sense. I totally loved Hudson though. Obviously. I mean, how could I not?

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