Reviews with content warning for Death - Battle Royal

Reviews tagging 'Death'

ladylothlorien's review

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

4.75

Almost a perfect book to me. I really loved the premise and Lucy Parker has been highly recommended, so I took a leap and bought the paperback. So glad I did! Such a lovely combination of hilarity, vulnerability, and sexiness. The reasons why the main couple experiences issues was much more realistic and the angst was pretty low here. But the story is tinged with grief, although not at all dragged down by having the characters allow themselves to feel it. Just a delightful, emotionally intelligent romance and I can’t wait to read the next in the series as well as everything else Lucy Parker has written!

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livelypsyche's review

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funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

4.0

The perfect book for lovers of romance and baking! Parker takes the concept of The Great British Bake Off (and where it is heading) and tweaks it a bit for a cute love story between the Grumpy Expert Judge and a bubbly former contestant. The romance isn’t predictable but the mystery of the mole at Sugar Fair is. Still, it was a lovely read and I’m looking forward to the sequel.

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barefootsong's review

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emotional funny medium-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

4.0

Overall, I enjoyed it, but there was too much going on for me to really sink into it. I liked the first half better before so many subplots took over. Also, there was more emotional pain and grief of various kinds than I was expecting. I think the only parts where I actually laughed-out-loud were in the first half, and then later I was just more generally amused by the funny stuff because so much else was going on. Still good, and I really loved Sylvie and Dominic's rivalry-turned-romance, but not my favorite of Parker's novels.

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divine529's review

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emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad 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

I had such a good time with this book. It's full of a lot of tropes I love, had fun and interesting characters and was just a good time.

This book follows our two main protagonists Sylvie and Dominic, who met previously in a show called Operation Cake (kind of like GBBO) where Sylvie was a contestant and ended up leaving the show due to an epic disaster involving a cake and Dominic's face (he's a judge). Now four years later, Sylvie is a new judge on the show and her and Dominic have to come face to face again despite having competing bakeries across the street from each other. Throw a competition to win a bid to make a royal wedding cake, explorations of trauma and grief and complicated relationships of all kinds and you have the basic idea of what this book is.

This book both hooked me from the beginning and took me some time to settle into. Baking in books is one of my favorite things and adding royalty into the mix is a recipe for a book I will most likely love and on those fronts it didn't disappoint.

Sylvie and Dominic are both interesting characters with lots of trauma and grief and different ways of coping and managing that and exploring all of that through their relationship with intimacy (everything from glances and gentle touches to sexual intimacy) was so heartbreakingly beautiful to watch and the relationship between Rosie and Johnny was lovely to see alongside the mystery and treasure hunt plotline of figuring out what happened to one of Rosie's relatives and his life (it's complicated). The relationship with Dominic and Pet was so good and I love them both. And even though I had issues with it at times, I really liked Sylvie and Jay's relationship too (though it utilized one of my least favorite tropes in books, I thought it was handled decently for a change).

Overall, I have a lot of feelings about everything in the book and it's hard to encompass all of them here, but I really enjoyed this and I can't wait to read the second installment.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and I look forward to revisiting this in the future.

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coacklebee's review

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funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

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

5.0

God, this book made me so happy. Believable enemies to lovers, no miscommunications or lying, some of the funniest one-liners I've read in years, and a whole slew of characters I want to read whole series about.

There were some confusing moments where I had to go back a couple of paragraphs to figure out what I had missed, but man, I loved the characters and I laughed so hard. This book is a freakin' delight!

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caseythereader's review

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

- BATTLE ROYAL is totally precious. Grumpy/sunshine bakers, with a GBBO-type show, and some royal wedding intrigue, too!
- This is a romance novel that really digs into feelings, both past and present. I love a book where you get to watch the leads learn how to care for and support each other.
- To be honest, I didn't really feel any heat between Sylvie and Dominic, but their relationship was so tender that I was mostly okay with it. I'll still keep reading this series; I for sure want to get stories for Pet and Mabel!

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kfmcf's review

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funny lighthearted reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

This book is an easy, fun read. The characters are likeable (but maybe not loveable) and the plot is decent. I appreciate it being a GBBS homage without being a DIRECT rip of the show (like another book I have read recently). I'm not going to clamor to read this book again, but I am looking forward to the sequel - especially since it follows Pet, arguably one of, if not the most interesting (and possibly only loveable) character in the book.
However, there was one thing about this book I found completely unnecessary (spoiler).

Why does her friend need to be in love with her? It not only makes him completely unlikable (and I am a self-proclaimed sucker for the friends-to-lovers trope, mind you), but it is also in a part of the book with enough conflict that it adds nothing and messes not only with the pacing of the plot of of the FL's character development. Honestly, this part of the book dropped my ranking of it by at least .5 points.

Overall, if you want a light book to take on a week or weekend long getaway (depending on how fast you read), this one does the job.

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