Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

37 reviews

alexiasp's review against another edition

dark tense

• 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child death, Murder, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Body horror, and Gore

Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence, and Vomit

enbyrd44's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

1.0

I was not the target audience for this book.

The way the author talked about a twelve year old girls body was creepy. And then compound that with an almost rape that is turned into a bonding moment, utterly disgusting. 

The story itself felt very start stop to me. 

The idea was good, the execution just didn’t work for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Alcoholism, Child death, Vomit, and Murder

Moderate: Excrement, Rape, Body horror, Gore, and Religious bigotry

gwenhwyfar's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

I knew just by looking at it that this book was for me. This might be the most metal book I've ever read. It's blasphemous. It's pestilential. It's ridden with corpses. It's a hellish pilgrimage across 14th century France. It goes in with the brutality, so I would pay close attention to content warnings. 

This story is about a young girl, eventually revealed to be named Delphine, approaches a group of brigands in around Normandy to help her bury her father. One, named Thomas, ends up killing the others, has her father buried, then agrees to accompany her to Paris and then Avignon (the papacy was in Avignon in the 14th century). On their travels, they also are joined up with a priest named Matthieu. Thomas had fought in the battle of Crecy, sustaining heavy wounds. His lands were then stolen from under him and he was unfairly excommunicated. Matthieu had a homosexual affair which was uncovered by the village he served, so his flock had abandoned him. Delphine is... Jesus 2.0. You see, God is missing, and Hell has declared war on of Heaven. The gates of heaven are defended but the angels are unable to help on earth, where demons are running rampant. The demons are responsible for the plague. They detect Delphine and they attempt to hinder her pilgrimage; her only protectors being Thomas, Matthieu, and various lesser angels working in secret. There's some seriously messed up imagery throughout.

I loved this. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Murder, Death, Violence, Torture, War, Religious bigotry, and Antisemitism

sheriffrockyraccoon's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I feel like I always have to knock stars off books for silly reasons, even if I liked them. Here, it is not the case. I was craving a good, medieval story and Google gave this book as the first result. I cannot believe Google just randomly offered me the best book I’ve read in YEARS.

I loved the references to Gnostic scripture and how it brought religion to life in such a way that now angels and God cannot be boring. That said, I believe this book can be enjoyed without being overly Christian- it’s a classic story about knights slaying monsters and supernatural forces that help him and his team along.

As a fan of Joan of Arc, I loved Delphine. Her character was compelling and fun, as were Matthieu and Thomas. This book is so funny with scenes packed with so much action I had to stop myself from reading too fast and savor it.

If you are a fan of knights, horror, and magic, I cannot recommend this book enough. It’s absolutely my favorite now.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Religious bigotry, Violence, Gore, Homophobia, Alcoholism, Cursing, Blood, Body horror, Pandemic/Epidemic, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, Addiction, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Antisemitism, Excrement, Vomit, Sexual assault, Islamophobia, Torture, Pedophilia, and Grief

flintk's review

challenging dark emotional sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Sexual content, Sexism, Animal cruelty, Child death, War, Religious bigotry, Rape, Misogyny, Vomit, Violence, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Blood, Antisemitism, Alcohol, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical trauma, Islamophobia, Abandonment, Genocide, Adult/minor relationship, Medical content, Child abuse, Grief, Animal death, Alcoholism, Body horror, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Murder, Homophobia, Death, Cursing, Classism, Cannibalism, Hate crime, Confinement, and Chronic illness

mori431's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Alcoholism, Murder, Homophobia, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Gore, Cannibalism, Cursing, War, Grief, Torture, Vomit, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

anewlens's review

dark sad tense fast-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cursing, Death of parent, Genocide, Sexism, Homophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Violence, Body horror, Child death, Pandemic/Epidemic, War, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Religious bigotry, Terminal illness, Death, Gore, Alcoholism, and Antisemitism

Moderate: Racism and Sexual assault

001's review

dark emotional 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, War, and Death

chrschn's review

dark slow-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

2.25

This is for sure going to be a clunky review, it’s super late and my eyes hurt and I dislike this book for reasons that are difficult to put into words. As a disclaimer though I will say that I’m very likely not the target audience for this one because most of what I disliked about this book are the same things that make it successful at what it was trying to do. 

Between Two Fires reads appropriately for its subject matter, in as much as it’s reminiscent of biblical writing. It’s oddly paced, moving glacially most of the time and then extremely quickly at others. It feels feverish and everything has a dreamlike quality, never sitting quite right, which I assume was intentional but didn’t make it any more endearing. People’s words, their actions, everything feels weirdly performative and ethereal and like you’re reading a parable. Appropriate, I guess. The book is somewhat episodic and doesn’t connect the pieces well, while at other times fails to adequately describe what it intends to, which left me feeling confused more than I expect I was supposed to, which took me out of the story a fair bit. This was only made worse by how frustratingly anachronistic the book was at times.

The world in BTF is filthy, cruel, and full of bad people, our protagonist included. Every character is unlikable, but there are moments of decency when the story calls for it. I never did really warm to anyone in the book, but found them a bit more sympathetic by the last 30 pages, having experienced at least some growth. There’s a really creepy fascination with

rape, particularly centered around the pre-teen deuteragonist

which was handled very poorly.

The character in question never is SA’d in the book, but the subject is approached an uncomfortable amount, and never well. At one point the primary protagonist resists demonic influence to rape his adolescent surrogate daughter, and upon successfully fighting it off, the book treats it like it’s a bonding moment for them, going so far as to have another character be jealous over the newfound closeness the two share over the ordeal.

Felt very fucking gross on the author’s part. Above all though, for the handful of very interesting and creepy ideas it has, everything feels just kind of pointless. Things happen just to happen. There’s a difference between establishing how fucked the world is and just throwing in a creepy idea you had without knowing how to tie it to anything significant. There’s not really a reason for most things that take place, and events don’t have much bearing on the central story. There’s a character that’s introduced later in the book that could have been removed entirely and nothing would have been different. 

My dislike for the book wavered slightly throughout, losing its intensity somewhat as we went on but never managing to go away. I will give BTF one full star for managing to finish on a high note with a well crafted ending. Still feel like I need to brush my teeth after the whole thing though. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Body horror

hgraham98's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Body horror, Grief, Violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Murder, Cursing, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Homophobia, Animal death, and Body horror

Minor: Fire/Fire injury