Reviews with content warning for Gore - The Death of Jane Lawrence

Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

113 reviews

woshuaa's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

2.5

i feel like this book was about three different things at one time and none of them managed to blend with each other. i was excited for the black magic angle but then they spent pages upon pages debating the practical logic behind even believing in magic and things never got more interesting from there honestly. i think there were a lot of good ideas at play here but none of them were implemented in a way i found interesting or unique unfortunately

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brethebookbean's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.5

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animafeline's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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roniboi's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

This book was odder, bloodier, and more disorienting than I thought it would be picking it up. I don't know exactly how to feel after finishing it. I just know it was well written. It was clearly thought out well. Yet I hesitate to say that I entirely enjoyed it. I suppose the events that unfolded in the latter half of the book were not my cup of tea, not meaning the gore or anything. I suppose I am less of a speculative fiction girlie than I originally thought. For someone who enjoys fantasy, I suppose I enjoy it a certain way if that makes any sense. I really can appreciate the grip the story had on me which is why it still gets such a high rating. I don't think it deserves any less.
The best part of the book for me was Jane which was shocking to me because I almost NEVER like the main character. I just felt I could relate to her on certain things and she was honestly just more compelling than most main characters with all her flaws, insecurities, and strengths.

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smylieman's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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stbyleth's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I enjoyed this book overall, I think. The prose was extremely well-written and the author did her research into the time period. I had started off with the audiobook and found it was not going as fast as I wanted (even though the audiobook was EXTREMELY well acted and well worth it), so I ended up buying a copy since I can read faster than listen.

I was put off by the magic at first but after suspending my disbelief it made sense in the narrative. That's what I get for not fully reading the summary.

The pacing is rather fast. Jane falls in love with Augustine and he, with her, in a matter of a week. I suppose that's par for the course for these types of novels but I think it would have been better if it had leaned more into her wanting to keep it a business relationship strictly (him falling in love with her, however, would still make sense to me; he is very controlled by his emotions, whereas she is very logical and cunning).

Rest of the review is spoilers.

"Chapter Zero" was odd, to me. Somehow I still hoped that Elodie was the real Elodie (I was guessing that Jane would offer up her life so that Elodie could live as Jane or perhaps they mix together, and that was what the title meant (the death of the "true" Jane)). I had assumed the rest of the ghosts were not who they said they were from the start, and it only became more apparent when it was shown that Augustine and Jane saw different things out of the same shadows. But the time travel plot seemed very... off, in a way. Perhaps that was the intention. It certainly pulled the narrative together but that was it. I will say, though, that the author was good at giving small hints that, upon looking back, make more sense knowing what we know now. Also, for the longest time, I assumed that it would actually not be any ghosts whatsoever and that there was actually a gas leak of some sort since there was a LOT of focus on the house being piped with gas. But then nothing came of it.

I think it would have been more fun if the concept of the mirror world was played with more. When "Elodie" showed up in the mirror I got excited because for some time I had been thinking that this was a mirrored version of our world, with some key differences, like the names of the locations and outcome of the war. I still don't know why it was set in an alternate reality if this was not the case.

Overall, good book that could have used some fine tuning, but I still think it was worth it.

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shaunna_elaine's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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luceeefur's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

4.0

All anyone really needs to do to get me to read something is include 'Crimson Peak' in it's description.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a great example of Gothic story telling, and I almost felt as though I was going mad with the characters towards the end. The romance between Jane and Augustin worked well with the plot and the setting. The anticipation of things about to go very bad was there early on in the novel, and ramped up appropriately for the genre.

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ashtheaudiomancer's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.25

The next time someone tells me that "horror" and "romance" cannot coexist in the same story, I'm giving them this book. Someone at the library recommended this for me last year, and it is absolutely my flavor of gothic, gruesome, and just a little bit sexy. This is the story of a young woman learning to wield a terrible power to save herself, and her husband, and peeking through the veil between worlds as a result. MUST have a strong stomach. There is gore and viscera pretty much the whole way through.

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alienor's review against another edition

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dark mysterious

3.75

The Death of Jane Lawrence feels like a fever dream at times, and the kind of novels one can very easily dissect and unearth bits to criticize. This is why I fully understand the mixed reviews it got, really. In the end however I thought it was weird in a way I personally found delightful, and for me the horror lay more in the loss of agency of its characters than in anything else—even though some parts were disgusting. All in all, a book I'll certainly reread but that I'll have a hard time recommending.

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