Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

62 reviews

spineofthesaurus's review

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Torture, Sexual violence, Gaslighting, Body horror, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Self harm, Stalking, Violence, Medical trauma, Blood, Death, Domestic abuse, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, and Outing

Moderate: Ableism, Abortion, Alcoholism, Genocide, Murder, Excrement, Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual assault, Racism, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Police brutality, Animal death, and Hate crime

Minor: Xenophobia, Alcohol, Slavery, Deadnaming, Classism, and Colonisation

l_e_lavalle's review

challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Physical abuse, Self harm, Pregnancy, Medical content, Abortion, Blood, Death, and Suicide

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Body horror, Grief, and Outing

Minor: Child death and Kidnapping

marleywrites's review against another edition

adventurous 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? It's complicated

4.0

My favorite character was Juniper.

I really thought she was gonna take over Hill’s familiar as her own. But the crow also makes sense and suits her.

She is such a badass character and I love her spirit. 

From reading reviews, I thought I wouldn’t like Agnes. But truly, I really enjoyed her character. I don’t usually relate to mothers or the whole “maternal bond” thing, but I really felt like Agnes did a good job of balancing her loyalty to her sisters and her child.

And I am obsessed with her relationship with August.

Bella was also a great character. I’m fond of lesbians and I’m fond of librarians, so this was just a wonderful character for me overall. I think I relate to Bella the most, with the anxiety yet fierce loyalty to her sisters. 

I don’t have a sister, but reading this book made me feel like I do. These characters had me wrapped up in their little family with them. And their extended family in the witching community was just beautiful. 

This book was a bit slow at first, but once it picked up I was IN IT! I think I’m going to recommend it to anyone looking for a witchy read.  I’m a big fan of Alix E. Harrow and have read two other books by her. I’ll definitely keep reading her work and I look forward to her next project!

Side note, I loved the LGBTQ+ rep in this book. Amazing. 

Side note to the side note: am I the only one who felt terrible for Hill’s dog? 😭

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Medical content, Pregnancy, Death, Murder, and Sexism

Moderate: Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Confinement

Minor: Death of parent, Animal death, and Sexual content

haunted_jackalope's review

adventurous emotional tense slow-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? Yes

4.5

Slow books aren't my favorite, but the story was worth it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Sexism, and Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Medical trauma, Abandonment, Child abuse, Classism, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Confinement, Cursing, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Pregnancy

Minor: Torture, Abortion, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

shelbea's review

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Misogyny, Violence, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Child abuse, and Death

Minor: Outing, Abortion, and Alcoholism

cassiopeia_lucky_fowkes's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad 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? Yes

5.0

This book is AMAZING I have read it twice now, I love it so much! 

You end up falling in love with the characters like they are you own Sisters (note the capital S) 
Only read if you are okay with crying for ten minutes at various parts of the book (this happened to me both times I read it!)

It has an amazing plot with lots of plot twists that grip and pull you into the story and dont let you go until its done

I wish this book had a sequal!

Also the writing style is amazing, there is the perfect amount of description to allow you to imagine sort of the more fine details in how a character looks for example but also gives you a good base 
the settings are also described in this way

I cant tell you how much I love this book tbh it changed the way I look at everything and changed my life too!

I highly recommend to any feminist out there.

Let the fire inside your heart continue to burn and let this book help it to burn brighter with fury, love, hate and hope.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Abortion, Cursing, Alcohol, Death, Toxic friendship, Blood, Pregnancy, Body shaming, Lesbophobia, Police brutality, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Murder, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Medical content, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Suicide, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia

I put all the content warnings in graphic because i dont have time to sort them! Also some are so minor they are only one sentence or word

anastasiamakes's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring sad 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Confinement, Racism, Blood, Child abuse, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, and Police brutality

Minor: Slavery, Abortion, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, and Transphobia

schnaucl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad 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

5.0

I really like this book.  It's very smartly written with interesting characters and clever tweaks to history and historical figures.  

It's a book that's full of women's rage and the subtle ways they have to hide their power to pass things down through the generations and the never ending cycle of women gaining a measure of power only to have it nearly all taken from them.  But still they endure. 

I appreciated the effort to bring in words and ways from other cultures, both contemporary and historical, and the focus on the fact that progress will eventually cause a reactionary backlash which will fall hardest on the most marginalized.

While I really liked the book, the ending didn't quite work for me.  Well, it works on a thematic level, just not a practical level. I can't think of any reason Gideon would choose to take over the body of a female child.   He is keenly aware of how easy to is to accuse a woman of witchcraft and see her burn, whether she's a witch or not.  I can't see himself putting himself in that position, even temporarily.   Surely he's found some method over the long years of gaining procuring what he needs from the next man (or potential men) whose body he intends to occupy.   I think Eve had to be in some kind of proximity and I'd think it a big gamble that once she was rescued she'd be brought to her mother's burning rather than safely whisked out of the city.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Death, Grief, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Death of parent, Police brutality, and Violence

Minor: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Physical abuse, Torture, and Abortion

immovabletype's review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Sexism, Torture, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, Racism, Death, Death of parent, Hate crime, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Moderate: Abortion, Domestic abuse, Police brutality, and Murder

Minor: Transphobia

lilithreads's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Racism, Death of parent, Abortion, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Violence, Blood, Confinement, Animal death, and Torture

Minor: Kidnapping, Transphobia, Grief, Sexism, and Sexual harassment