Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Black Wings Beating by Alex London

9 reviews

20sidedbi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Toxic relationship, War, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, and Violence

Minor: Self harm, Child death, and Vomit

theintrovertsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Death, Blood, Physical abuse, Gore, and Body horror

Moderate: Animal death, Torture, Death of parent, Self harm, Sexism, Confinement, Drug use, Cursing, Child abuse, Racism, and Murder

Minor: Trafficking, Slavery, Vomit, War, Toxic friendship, Racial slurs, and Child death

kylieqrada's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

Please note that this is not an objective review at all. It is based on pure vibes. I just straight up really enjoyed the reading experience and loved how casually diverse this was. Plus Alex London's writing really worked for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Confinement, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Self harm, Ableism, and Homophobia

bookcaptivated's review

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal death, Murder, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Child abuse

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death of parent

readingrobin's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-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? Yes

3.0

Definitely a middle of the road kind of book, where there wasn't anything that made me regret picking it up, nor did it wow me. The worldbuilding is a bit sparse, though looking ahead to future installments in the series, I see that more things get developed so naturally I think this book is just meant to get all the introductory concepts established. It has a fairly good pace, never lagging or rushing through any development.

Kylee's an engaging lead character, determined, loyal, and willing to do anything to protect her brother. Sometimes it feels a little too self sacrificial, though I'm a little biased since I wasn't the biggest fan of Brysen. I know his whole issue was that he felt useless and couldn't do anything but....he would be right. He's incredibly rash, impulsive, frustrating, shortsighted, and really doesn't see how his actions affect anyone around him, all of this just culminating into a really unlikable character. He's never outright malicious, but seeing him make wrong decision after wrong decision, leaving everyone to clean up after his mess gets tiring. I can only hope that he improves as the series goes on. Honestly, I'm interested in seeing how his relationship with Jowyn develops, so I guess this series has something for me to come back to.

On that note, Jowyn was probably the highlight of the book for me, just for being a weird little dude and I like that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

foreverinastory's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

3.5

3.5 rounded up!

Rep: Aroace BIPOC female MC, achillean (gay coded) BIPOC male MC, achillean male side character.

CWs: Animal death, blood, child abuse, death/death of parent, domestic abuse, drug use, injury/injury detail, murder, physical abuse, violence.

I heard there's an ace character! Instant boost in TBR priority! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, and Violence

sandy_21's review

adventurous emotional funny 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: Child abuse, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Animal cruelty

Minor: Homophobia and Ableism

ceciliabereadin's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, and Animal death

Moderate: Animal cruelty

Minor: Self harm

booksthatburn's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

In BLACK WINGS BEATING where there are no good options and death is only a poorly-timed argument away, two siblings must brave the mountain to capture the eagle which killed their abusive father, and perhaps find themselves.

This is an emotional roller coaster. The main characters are really well established early on and then their needs and desires just... crash into each other over and over until they finally start to work together once it gets through their heads that being right might be less important than making it out alive. There are occasional scenes from other characters' perspectives, but the main two are the twins, Kylee and Brysen. The sibling dynamic between them felt tangled and genuine and I like getting both of their perspectives as narrators. The emotional core of this book is that strained sibling relationship, and what it means for them to keep going after the all-consuming presence of their abuser is gone. They start the book not wanting him back but also not quite knowing what to do with the pieces left behind and the spaces he no longer fills. It's messy and complicated, and I love where the story goes with it. 

The siblings' relationship is particularly good, but there are a lot of relationships and they're handled with nuance. Some of them are pretty positive and some are extremely negative, but they're all complicated. They hit the sweet spot of being complex enough to imply a lot of emotional depth that there might not be enough time to explore fully, while also being very easy to sum up. Everything from "probably unrequited crush" to "sister thinks her brother's older boyfriend is just using him", they have space to develop. There's definitely a theme of loving someone who can't or doesn't love you back, explored in a bunch of different ways.

This is a bloody book with a very high body count. It maintains the tension that anyone could die by following through and having a lot of people (and birds) die. I never felt like the violence was gratuitous in terms of what the narrative needed, the most gruesome scenes were establishing important things about various characters' approach to violence and their relative willingness to kill to make a point. 

I loved this and I'll definitely check out the sequel, I'm very interested in what happens next.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Violence, Torture, Animal death, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Religious bigotry, Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, and Vomit

Minor: Ableism, Homophobia, and Self harm

CW for ableist language, confinement, cursing, homophobia (backstory), religious bigotry, adult/minor relationship, drug use, child abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, domestic abuse (backstory), vomit, blood, gore (graphic), self harm (brief), violence (graphic), torture (graphic), animal death (graphic), murder (graphic), major character death, death (graphic).