Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

86 reviews

bethsreading's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

2.25

This book was definitely a disappointment. It had an enticing concept, a matriarchal village that must pay the tithe of one girl a year to the ruling patriarchal coloniser of the area. The main character, Evike, is the only girl in her village without magic, and so she is cast away into the arms of the enemy when the tithe must be paid. I thought the story would be comprised of a dark and mysterious journey through the woods between these two enemies, with some obvious enemies to lovers romance in there. I think that if the book had been this, it would have worked a lot better. However, the scale became too grand with kings, politics, and war, and sadly it just felt flat and tropey for me. In fact most of this book was a genuine struggle to get through. 

Evike on the surface is an interesting heroine, someone without magic from a community where magic defines and protects them. But she was so irritating

and ends up getting a dark magic anyway! Whatsmore, she is supposed to be the best huntress in her village and Gaspar (the love enemy love interest) is supposedly keeping her alive because he is a useless hunter and she will protect him. However, it ended up being him saving her over and over again — also he ends up being a really skilled swordsman which completely conflicted that element of the plot. She doesn’t save him once, except by wrapping his wounds and cooking his dinner, which feels like it is just reinforcing the gender stereotypes it was trying to subvert.

I did like the books commentary on religious hypocrisy, but it kept hammering it home every page as if it thought the reader was too stupid to recognise it. A lot of the book was obvious and the rest convoluted. I did not genuinely care about a single character and if I hadn’t have DNF’d Belladonna just before it, I wouldn’t have dragged myself through it. I have heard good things have Reid’s other book, Juniper and Thorn, which I would be willing to try in the hopes it is better than this

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Murder, War, Violence, Body horror, Racism, and Sexual content

maresuju's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Religious bigotry, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Animal death, Antisemitism, Colonisation, Death, Genocide, Gore, Self harm, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Torture, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and War

jaybird_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

Read the book you will NOT regret it!! A dark, gorey fantasy with a cast of fully dimensional female characters and a well-done enemies-to-lovers romance. I don’t even want to say much else because it’s just such a good read. I loved the main character and the love interest is babygirl to me!!

Readers who dislike religion (even in the fictional setting) may want to pass this one over because it’s such a heavy theme but I thought it was delicious. 

The critique: the author LOVES purple prose and cannot stop herself from writing as many metaphors as possible. This is a pro or con depending on personal taste imo. 

PS there’s a pronunciation guide at the back of the book lol

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Murder, Violence, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, War, Death, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Sexual content and Vomit

breadwitchery's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Violence, Self harm, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Religious bigotry, Antisemitism, Sexual content, and Death of parent

Minor: Child abuse and Ableism

bedtimesandbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Antisemitism, Blood, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Self harm, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Xenophobia, Genocide, Animal cruelty, Body horror, and War

Moderate: Child death

katievallin's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Xenophobia, War, Vomit, Blood, Child abuse, Genocide, Death, Racism, Religious bigotry, Torture, Grief, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, Gore, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Murder, Violence, Animal death, Antisemitism, and Bullying

Moderate: Death of parent, Child death, Domestic abuse, and Sexual content

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Body shaming, and Alcohol

fuitfortuna's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

2.75

Mixed feelings on this one. 

I really liked the world building, it was interesting and I could tell that the author was really knowledgeable about the folklore that inspired the world and the magic system was intriguing.

My problems lie everywhere else. While Reid certainly is talented I often found some of the writing repetitive, the author would find a phrase she liked and rinse it multiple times within 5 pages and at times i found it very difficult to power through - i actually put the book down for almost two months when i reached the halfway point because i had no motivation to continue. 

And that’s not even to mention how this almost felt like a YA masquerading as an adult? Evike is supposed to be 25 but spends most of the book acting like she’s 16. I have no real basis for this but there were multiple times where the vibes were just incredibly YA.

The pacing was also a large issue for me the first half of the book almost moved too slow and the second half moved way too fast.

The book really started to pick up once they reached the city and then it felt like events were flying by. This was really unfortunate as once we meet Katalin once again and have the big battle (for some reason?) it feels so unearned that I just didn’t really care.

I also have some conflicted thoughts on the romance. I’d heard it was more of an enemies-to-lovers type of deal and to not expect it to be the main focus of the story. And while they were certainly enemies at the very start by virtue of their backgrounds, the romance actually felt very insta-love to me,

with little development as to why they’d grown to care for each other. Though I agree that the romance should not be the main thing you focus on, it’s difficult not to when Evike is horny for Gaspar on like every page.

The epilogue left me very unfulfilled, while I could understand how Evike longed to belong somewhere and loved Keszi despite her difficult history I do not understand why she would have chosen to go back there when like every single person there was terrible to her at best and actively abusive at worst.

Overall I was quite disappointed as I expected to like this a lot more than I actually did, perhaps I just built it up too much in my head. However I did still enjoy most of the book and would read some of the authors other works.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal death, Blood, Death, Self harm, Body horror, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Racism, Antisemitism, War, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

simone_elizabeth's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.0

The thing I enjoyed most about this book was how it challenged our cultures view of historical eastern Europe and put marginalized cultures in the spotlight. I loved reading about Reid’s perspective on fiction as an academic and a Jewish person. The writing had some confusing imagery and the characters often repeated themselves, but those are minor gripes, especially for a debut. Also the gore in this book is hard core! (Which honestly… slay)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Animal death, Blood, Xenophobia, Body horror, Death, Gore, Murder, Racism, War, Antisemitism, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse

Minor: Sexual content

gemmie_gee's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, War, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Bullying, Murder, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent and Grief

adonis_march's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring 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? It's complicated

3.75

The Wolf and the Woodsman is a debut novel. It’s got the clunk of one. But by god, is it a good debut novel. For all my issues with some of the tropes in this book, and it’s pacing, and occasionally meandering plot, the latter half of this novel had my heart pounding, my stomach doing turns.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Religious bigotry, Violence, Death, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Blood, Murder, Gore, and Hate crime

Moderate: Classism, Torture, Emotional abuse, Colonisation, Bullying, Self harm, Body horror, War, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Animal death, Xenophobia, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Animal cruelty, Confinement, and Kidnapping

This is a book very much about the horrific history and acts of Christian zealotry that caused both pagan and Jewish communities to be wiped out, and echoes the centuries of fear and grief that the Jewish community has had to endure since.