Reviews tagging 'Death'

As Old as Time by Liz Braswell

21 reviews

lauraeduncan's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Body horror

Moderate: Cursing

Minor: Murder, Gore, Violence, Suicide, and Forced institutionalization

skyegbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious fast-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

I had been questioning if I would even enjoy this book, due to putting it off for so long I believed it would seem childish and boring to me. This was not at all the case. The story is so unlike the original, so entirely unique, it's amazingly thought through.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Torture, Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Gun violence, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

emilywemily6's review

dark hopeful mysterious slow-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? It's complicated

2.75

I picked this book because it was the highest rated of this series and Beauty and the Beast is one of my faves. This story is similar to canon, though definitely diverges and heads towards an alternate ending. It was way too long; four hours in, I realized that the book was four hours too long. A major focus of the story was Belle learning about how complicated her mother was, but I didn’t feel like any of the other characters had greater depth than the original movie gives. The past storyline was interesting. Check the trigger warnings because there’s some dark stuff going on. Overall, I am not sure I enjoyed the reading of this book, and I don’t see myself reading the others unless they are much shorter.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture and Violence

Moderate: Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Blood, Death, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Bullying, Kidnapping, and Murder

Minor: Self harm, Alcohol, and Gun violence

joisaddler's review

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Murder, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Death, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, and Religious bigotry

vixenreader's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

The ending is a bit of a bummer, it still has a lot of creativity, and it addresses the hiccups in a more fascinating fashion. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Colonisation, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Medical trauma, Grief, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, Body horror, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Abandonment

Minor: Gore, Alcohol, and Sexism

There are discussions of discrimination, segregation, and immigrating outside of a land because of fear for one’s own livelihood.

gattolinos_nerdy_nook's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

4.5

A Twisted Tale story is always a fun read. With this twisted tale I loved the dual POV that we got with the story. How the lore was laid out for us and we got to see how everything got to the point that it did in the story.
I thought how everything was done with the history was impeccable and had me hooked from the start to the finish. I loved how this twist played out, and enjoyed how satisfying it was to finish.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia

Moderate: Torture, Death, Violence, Medical trauma, and Murder

Minor: Suicide

alexinitalics's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I definitely enjoyed this book, personally I was a very big fan of the flash back sections in the first half of the book, especially as the rest was basically just retelling the movie exactly. The second half focuses more on the "twisted tales" idea, continuing the timeline of the movie after a major change. It has a lot of clever ideas that it explored well, although I found it a little inconsistent. The villain was a good twist on the original story and I didn't see it coming. However I think it was also a little affected by the pacing as I felt there were two many reveals in a short space of time. I've seen a lot of people complain about Belle's characterisation but I personally didn't find this. I did think the beast's character was well written and the new characters were interesting to read about.
Overall, I definitely recommend this book for Disney/beauty and the beast/twisted tales fans but it's not one of my favourites from the series

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Grief, Torture, and Genocide

Minor: Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Body horror, Death of parent, and Forced institutionalization

quartzbeesknees's review

dark lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

The story itself was quite nice. It read a bit like fan fiction, which I suppose in a sense it is. I will admit I was disappointed with then ending, however it did encourage my reading streak to kick back up and definitely didn’t stop me from reading the entire book in one sitting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, and Murder

Minor: Blood, Grief, Abandonment, and Toxic friendship

amarti727's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Medical trauma, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Torture, Violence, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, and Physical abuse

meganpbennett's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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? No

3.0

I've been a Beauty and the Beast fan for years. I think I wore out a VHS tape of the Disney version, and oh, that library! So when I learned that there was a "twisted tale" version, I quickly added it to my TBR list. 

It's an interesting "what if?" and it relies very heavily on the reader's knowledge of the Disney version of the tale, which is far far older than even the Perrault version. This reliance on the reader's knowledge is a drawback, as someone who is casually aware of the story would not be able to understand what is going on in this version, or be able to read other of these "twisted tales" without a thorough understanding of the Disney version of the story. 

 On to the story. The first half plays out almost exactly like the Disney movie, though with a lot of backstory about Belle's mother. The chapters alternate between Belle and Maurice in the present time, and Maurice and Belle's mother in the past, with nothing to differentiate the time periods, which is a major drawback, and I almost stopped reading when I couldn't figure out *when* the chapter was taking place. The book goes into detail about what the kingdom was like before the prince was cursed, but more specifically, *why* the enchantress felt it necessary to curse the Prince. Very interesting. 

The story got much more interesting and intense when Belle finds the rose. As the daughter of the enchantress who set the spell, Belle's accidental touch destroys the rose, dooming the Beast and everyone who was caught in the spell to a life of being enchanted household items. The next sections detail their attempts to research how the curse came into being, who placed the curse and why, and how to break it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Ableism, Bullying, Confinement, Violence, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, Murder, Death, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, Gore, Torture, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Racism, and Blood