Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

43 reviews

coffee_and_wool's review against another edition

A lot of sexism, seems like a men in black style of detective story, kind of like Amari's level of types of creatures in the world, and I don't think that works in an adult novel. Would rather it have some measure of believability. Also some really disturbing events.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism and Child death

thequiltyreader's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious 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

4.0

Enjoyable read and good set up novel for the series. I found small sections a little too verbose which sometimes brought the quick pace to a crashing stop but that would be my only complaint and I'm hoping that's just partly down to this being a scene setter first novel in the series. Looking forward to book 2.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Addiction, Violence, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Murder, Suicide, Death, Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, Medical content, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Blood, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Torture, Gore, Racial slurs, and Sexual assault

elesme's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.0

Story was interesting, but was far too violent

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Violence, Child death, Murder, and Grief

Moderate: Domestic abuse

Minor: Vomit

extrey_extrey's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Sexual content, and Torture

smax's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Child death

It’s generally a fun, easy, somewhat lighthearted book, but there’s a really unexpected scene pretty early on where a baby dies, which took me off guard.

popsicleplease's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Addiction

Minor: Racism and Xenophobia

littlebee09's review against another edition

adventurous funny 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child death, and Gore

Minor: Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, and Vomit

a_k_lennard's review against another edition

funny lighthearted mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

3.75

I love the interesting plot lines and the characters. I think Aaronovitch’s writing style is reminiscent of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams in its playful and sarcastic manner. However, Aaronovitch’s protagonist is a black guy, Peter Grant, and you can tell that Aaronovitch doesn’t write from personal experience of being a black man (he’s white). This leaves Peter Grant feeling like a caricature rather than a real person (this does get better as the books go on). I also don’t particularly enjoy the way women are referred to in this book — if a woman is mentioned, it is all about sexualising her, especially the young black women (specifically Beverley) because of course!
I do think the author had some constructive feedback (maybe after the second book) because they are getting less and less offensive which can only be a good thing. Who knew a middle aged man could learn that some people are more than their tits?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Child death

Moderate: Racism

freya163's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

2.25

Probably a really engaging book to some, it just wasn’t my style. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Death

Moderate: Child death

mayvisin's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny informative lighthearted mysterious 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

4.0

I really liked this book! The world building was super fun (especially the rivers), I really enjoyed Peter as a protagonist, the supporting characters were really interesting and the audiobook was really well produced. 

The fly in the ointment for me (and probably why this was 4 instead of 5 stars) was that I was getting a literary version of "Would this pass the Bechdel test?" because almost all the female characters seemed defined by their sexual relationships/availability/lack of availability to various male characters. Clearly after reading mainly women authors for several months, going back to male portrayals of women is a bit of a shock to the system.

I liked the book enough though that I plan to continue the series and hope it gets better from that standpoint...🤞

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Gore, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, and Racism

Minor: Addiction and Rape