Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - The Grimrose Girls

It was gripping but the characters were flat, I didn't care for any of them, the whole magic thing came out of nowhere and felt weird (and hopefully it gets explained on the second book because it wasn't on this one), and the representation was done very poorly: Ella's "OCD" is nothing like real OCD, Rory, Nani and Yuki's sexualities felt very stereotypical, and Yuki being so cold and emotionless is a harmful aroace stereotype, far from the truth (even tho it can be explained by the fact that she was been brought up to be perfect, perfect can still show emotions), and while I don't think the author was trying to say trans people are beasts, making the only trans character The Beast/Adam from Beauty and the Beast was still a poor choice (because we see that the characters and their stories from the book aren't modern versions of their fairy-tale counterparts that follow exactly the same paths, like Micaeli, I think what the author wanted to do was make Svenja's transition represent Adam going back to his real form after being freed from the witch's curse, without being literal to the story and making it all "oh I found love and that's what made me strong enough to be my true self"). I'm debating between reading the second one (partly because I'm a scaredy cat and this made me sleep with my lights on lmao) and just finding the most spoilery review possible to find out what happens

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jekisah's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

5.0

There were some typos but overall it is a great story!

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mpbookreviews's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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? Yes

3.5

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sinaprst's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

I didn't have to high expectations going into this, but I really enjoyed this. Sure there were things that probably could've been handled better and the ending was kinda predictable, but overall I liked pretty much all of the characters and especially the four narrators.
I also now crush on all of the characters love interests, because I have a problem.

The book is written from four perspectives and all of the chapters are fairly short. I saw some people on here criticizing that, which I somewhat get, but still disagree with. I don't really know why but short chapters especially and also switching povs are things that I at least look for in a book, because long chapters scare me, but that's a me thing I guess, so everyone is different in that regard.

The whole vibe of the book gave pretty much dark academia which I loved and it also very much reminds me of pretty little liars (which I also love, even though it gets more and more unhinged from season to season), so this was right up my alley.

I have to say though the magic came kind of out of the blue for me and I hope it gets established more in the next book. Also I was kind if disappointed that there were mostly European fairytales in there, that even though, that they were darker then the Disney versions, felt kind of Disney-ish, I kind of hoped to have each of the girls have the faith of a fairytale from their country/culture, especially because the whole boarding has students from all over the world.
Lastly, I also wished it was even darker and especially creepier, but maybe that will come in the next one, now that the girls know what's going on.

Regarding the villain of this book, I really liked her, but then again I'm biased because I always have a thing for bad girls. You could kind of see it coming though, who was supposed to be the bad guy. But I'm very much intrigued to see, who will be the big bad guy now, after she died, because obviously there is still more to everything than we as the reader know right now.

Overall, this was far from perfect, but enjoyable nonetheless and I will definitely pick up the next book in this series, because I desperately need answers.

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davegrohlsgf_'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? Yes

3.0

i loved the concept and the premise of the book, but it also disappointed me a lot. the pop culture references were unnecessary and cringy, and some of the plot points

*cough* yuki getting full on powers like elsa *cough*

were just terrible. also the stereotypes surrounding the only trans character in the book??? extremely harmful. overall, sad that this one didn't live up to my expectations

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