Reviews tagging 'Blood'

As Old as Time by Liz Braswell

10 reviews

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

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.

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

stardustdreamer's review

dark emotional hopeful 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Medical trauma, Medical content, Kidnapping, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Slavery, Mental illness, Ableism, and Torture

Minor: Classism and Suicide

maymoo's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

Very fun to read would recommend. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Violence, and Vomit

Does romantic stockhomesyndrome.

aurora_earlgrey_books's review

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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

As a huge Disney fan I love these books. But iv'e never like the Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin movies. They seemed cliche and boring. But reading this book brought new light to the story and now I enjoy the movie. I love seeing the twists and turns and new character development. You grow to love the characters that didn't really play a large part in the movie who now have new life in the book.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Murder, Death, Gore, and Torture

Minor: Abandonment and Blood

Though these are mentioned in the book I would say it is still appropriate as a YA novel.

laurelconover's review

adventurous dark 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

4.25

I wasn't expecting this story to be as complex (in a good way!) As it was but there was adventure, mystery, intrigue, an interesting twist on a Disney tale with a surprisingly dark underbelly that felt like a full and well done story.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Blood, Body horror, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

there is somewhat graphic depictions of violence and torture towards the late middle/end of the book to be aware of

ehmannky's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted mysterious 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

3.75

Well this was a fun time. The romance was definitely the weakest part of this retelling, mostly because it is just so fast-paced that there really isn't a ton of time for Belle and Beast to grow to love each other. The beginnings of something cute is there, but it's not a deep romance. Where this book shines is the portrayal of Belle's mother as the enchantress. I almost would have liked for the book to start somewhere around the time Belle comes to the castle, no prologue, then move to all the exciting action bits, and then have the last third or so be about Belle learning to be around her mother that she isn't sure she exactly likes as a person as she falls more in love with Beast. The book just comes into its own when it does its own thing and breaks away from the Disney movie, and I wish Braswell had had more space to do that. 

It does lean on the "fantasy creatures as an allegory for real marginalized people," which isn't a trope I love. I don't know, other than these complaints, I had fun while reading it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Blood, Body horror, and Gun violence