Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

24 reviews

libellumartinae's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful slow-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

4.75

I AM IN YOUR WALLS SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA AFTER THAT ENDING, I... ugh... I am not going to spoil anything but pls book a therapist's appointment once you start this book because, I am not the person I was before I started this book.

alright, onto better stuff and a more coherent review: this book was delightful.

the romance, the adventure, the ethics. it had it all in a wonderful context of Mexico in the roaring twenties and I feel like there's always some difficulty when handling historical urban fantasy but somehow Silvia Moreno-Garcia always manages to actually amaze me by introducing the context in a fable-like way that explains it perfectly.

the only thing I didn't fully enjoy, was the pacing at the beginning of the chapters and the way she handled the switch of the characters, hence the absence of perfection.

in conclusion, read this book PLSSSSS.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Gore, and Violence

md3's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Violence, Murder, Emotional abuse, Racism, Bullying, and Blood

Minor: Death of parent

scarroll178's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? No

4.5

I like the main character. Life has forced her to be very practical-minded. I enjoy how matter-of-fact she is when faced with challenges along her journey. She and the other main character have great chemistry. 

I have mixed feelings about the ending, but overall a great book if you're in the mood for something adventurous/romantic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Murder, and Gore

jj_tj's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Blood, Gore, and Suicide

allisonmspiers's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Suicide, and Death

Moderate: Stalking, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Physical abuse, Gore, Sexual harassment, Murder, Classism, Child abuse, Bullying, Sexism, Misogyny, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Colonisation, Ableism, Death of parent, Torture, Grief, Sexual content, and Racism

heatherjchin's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Murder, War, Blood, Suicide, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, and Death

Moderate: Gore, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

Minor: Kidnapping, Death of parent, Colonisation, Self harm, and Grief

kappafrog's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Suicide, Sexism, Violence, Racism, Self harm, Bullying, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Domestic abuse, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, and Gore

Minor: Body horror, Alcohol, Cannibalism, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Misogyny, and Murder

readwithbells's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.5

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s character work continues to be exceptional. She establishes complicated familial relationships quickly and easily and weaves a nice touch of magical realism to make the book a bit more fun. I really enjoyed the first half of this guy, but I found my enjoyment waning in the second half. It almost felt like she had plotted the beginning steps to get Casiopeia out of her hometown and she had the end figured out and was pantsing her way through the middle section. It was weirdly slow and I didn’t feel like I learned a lot or that the characters grew very much during that time at all. It also felt like the stakes were very low - their quest for the missing pieces was so easy! Took a lot of propulsion out of the story. I did really like the ending though and the Mayan mythology was definitely the best part of this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide

Moderate: Gore and Animal death

emily_mh's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective 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

3.5

Unfortunately I didn't super enjoy my time with this one. This is a quest narrative but it didn't do the job as one for me. I think the beauty of a quest narrative is that you don't really know where it's going - as a reader you have knowledge of an end point and an initial plan, but something will throw the hero off course to keep you on your toes. However, the narrative followed the initial plan in a really linear and repetitive way, with only minor obstacles for Casiopea and Hun-Kamé (until the end). 

I did like the narrative voice as I found it unique and it had a fairytale-like quality to it. However, it came at the cost of feeling distanced from Casiopea and her inner-world. A final thing I didn't like about the book was how quickly Casiopea and Hun-Kamé fell in love. Even though we are told this happened slowly, they had only known each other for a few weeks so I just didn't find this believable.

So I was especially frustrated that they were both so close to throwing in the towel because of this love.

Also, I really don't like the immortal/mortal trope especially as Casiopea is only 18. 

Despite these negatives, there were a lot of positives too! I really enjoyed the opposing development of Casiopea and Hun Kamé, how they were switching from mortal to immortal or vice versa, and how they learned more about their initial state through the other's journey. I really liked where Casiopea ended up overall, too. Speaking of the ending, the last 50 pages were really fantastic - gripping and satisfying. And I really loved reading and learning about Mayan mythology too, like the duality of Xibalba that was cleverly reflected in so many other parts of the narrative. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide and Death

Moderate: Cursing, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Murder, and Violence

Minor: Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Confinement, Racism, Alcohol, Forced institutionalization, Drug use, Gun violence, Colonisation, Slavery, Deportation, Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Religious bigotry, Classism, Gore, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Physical abuse, Death of parent, War, Child abuse, Racial slurs, Hate crime, Self harm, Body shaming, Ableism, Sexism, Misogyny, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: illness, colourism, ethnic racism, volcano, self-injury, insects, hurricane, earthquake

mooshake's review

adventurous emotional mysterious 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? N/A

3.5

in the wise words of fracking legend rupaul: meh
which is disappointing because there were aspects of this book like the writing, some moments with casiopea and hun-kamé, the love and care that is put into describing mexican/mayan culture and history, and the ending (which is the reason this rating is as high as it is); but honestly there were a lot of descriptions and passages where i was like..... this could have been an email lol

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Domestic abuse, and Misogyny