Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

12 reviews

katemarie99's review

challenging dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Was considering a 4.5 at first but no -- it deserves the whole five. That destroyed me 🙃🙃🙃

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, and Bullying

Moderate: Sexual content, Addiction, Racism, Sexual harassment, Adult/minor relationship, Slavery, Blood, Gun violence, Body horror, Hate crime, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Suicide attempt

diaashka's review

adventurous dark 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Minor: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Police brutality, Hate crime, and Slavery

prairieraven's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Car accident, Gore, Addiction, Body horror, Gun violence, Murder, Racial slurs, Medical trauma, Kidnapping, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicide, Mental illness, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Eating disorder, Rape, Abandonment, Sexism, Slavery, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Sexual content, Violence, Cancer, Child death, Confinement, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Stalking, Torture, Vomit, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Classism, Cursing, Police brutality, Racism, and Toxic friendship

paduckling's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Drug abuse, and Grief

Moderate: Mental illness, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Classism, Toxic friendship, Addiction, Forced institutionalization, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Police brutality, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Slavery, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, and Vomit

frantically's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Just like Alex and Daws in this book, Hell Bent felt a bit...lost without Darlington to help it along. 

I truly wish I could talk to Leigh Bardugo in 2019 and ask her what her plans for this series were because surely, it couldn't have been this. I don't know if it's the pandemic that hit her just as hard as it did the rest of us but this installment feels so disjointed from Ninth House. 

While we thankfully lose the false and overdone academic pretentiousness that so many dark academia novels bring with it (I'm sorry to destroy your dreams but I'm doing my history degree at one of the eldest unis in Europe and unless people have been hiding their dark pagan rituals from me, it's truly all not that deep), we also lose the fun that getting to know all the Societies and their own intricate histories was. While Lethe, and thus Alex, was very involved in the Societies' happenings in NH (...as they should be), we get close to none of that in the sequel which is really disappointing — why did I start making annotations in NH about all the Societies to keep them apart if it's all useless? 

But then sometimes it also feels like Bardugo used the basic dark academia tropes in NH to get us all invested so now she can bring out her fucked up version of Alice in Wonderland (complete with a rabbit!) into the world and if that's the case, respect to her. 

This book is very much character-focused ("but Hanna, you said it's plot-driven!" those are different things to me OK), we learn that — surprise! — Alex isn't the only one here with dark secrets and actually even "the good guys" like Turner (whom I absolutely loved in this book) have their own demons (sometimes literally...) to contend with. First, only Daws and Alex, then a bigger team of mischiefs, try to find a path into Hell on campus and I loved to see them figure all the clues out and how the history of the Societies was involved in it (at least some of my annotations were worth it!). 

There's another murder mystery that I (and the characters) honestly could've done without, faculty members dying with most everyone (even Alex and Turner) going "yeah that just seems like slightly weird but still regular murder :)" is what I want from my thrillers not from my Sci-Fi. 

Then, there were the trips into Hell, for which "trips" is honestly enough of a description. Just straight up wild. You can tell how much effort Bardugo has put into researching different religions and their descriptions of Hell/hell-esque realms/the afterlife and as a religious history nerd, I greatly enjoyed the more "theoretical" aspects of that and the discussions about it. What actually transpired in Hell is the fucked up Alice in Wonderland stuff I was talking about — just wait and see. 

Not to out myself once again as a white man's hoe but I have no shame in admitting that I'm mainly here for Darlington. Sorry but that man is exactly who I'd fall for (history nerd, you remember) and, not to spoil anything, but while Darlington may not be completely with Darlington 2.0, I, for one, am just loving him even more. 

While there's no explicit present romance, there are some surprisingly spicy thoughts from both Alex and Darlington (especially Darlington) about the other and I'm extremely ready to see where that goes. 

We get some more of Alex's "Lady of the Wheel" stuff (sorry, I listened in German!), not as much as I would've liked, especially because it was such a big revelation in NH, but after all, there was a guy to get back from hell, so I'll forgive it for now. 

I still love these characters dearly and even though it seems we're gonna keep going into weird territory with the ending, I'm still fascinated by the world as well, so even though this book was at times a mess and completely over the place, I will be warily looking forward to the next book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Police brutality, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Gore, Grief, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Sexism, Blood, Confinement, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: Self harm, Torture, Sexual assault, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Classism, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Rape, Slavery, and Suicide attempt

chronicacademia's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Addiction, Blood, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, and Racism

Minor: Alcohol, Cancer, Cannibalism, Medical content, Stalking, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

syd991's review

adventurous dark 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

5.0

Even better than the first, although now I’m sad that I don’t have any more Leigh Bardugo to read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Addiction, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, and Grief

Moderate: Police brutality, Sexual assault, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, and Gun violence

Minor: Vomit and Suicide attempt

cfoley's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Violence, Sexism, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Suicide attempt, Murder, Police brutality, Sexual content, Misogyny, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Drug use, Drug abuse, Self harm, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, Gun violence, and Grief

Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, Death, Cursing, Animal cruelty, Addiction, Animal death, Sexual assault, Alcohol, and Abandonment

kattybusiness's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexual violence, and Murder

Moderate: Stalking, Slavery, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

martinatan's review

adventurous dark emotional funny 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? Yes

4.25

Leigh Bardugo owns this ass

ok ok some thoughts that ran through my head, but not a cohesive review because I will always be too insane and biased about her writing to write something balanced:
- she strikes again with the calculated development of

unconventional and intense  romance! i swear that she makes an art of slipping in well-placed sentences that convey barely restrained emotional tension. I feel like similar to Kaz and Inej in the Crows duology, Alex and Darlington have such a specific set of neuroses that make them tragically terrible for each other but maybe even worse if they were to be paired with anyone else or left alone. Their dynamic is heartbreakingly good with a little sexual tension as a treat.

the rest of the plot was pretty good too.
- Also I am enjoying this crew becoming

more monstrous, as their world becomes increasingly hellish. There’s something inherently queer and found family-ish about a bunch of university age adults coming together over murder and blood magic. don’t @ me.

- She did a great job of introducing antagonists into the story and slowly revealing and resolving conflicts throughout. This is something that was done well in the first book and I was pleasantly surprised that it was still so satisfying and fresh in this one.
- I was similarly worried about attempting to replicate the mixed timeline format from the first book but it was just as effective, just made me wary at first because the opening to this series was such an immediate draw for me and to see it attempted again felt like she was setting myself up for disappointment. but it did NOT disappoint.
- I was also anticipating more backstory and development for characters introduced in the first book. This met my expectations and I found their histories to be really compelling, if not admirable or enviable.

I was so delighted by snippets of Dawes and Turner POVs, and I really hoped Dawes would become a more central perspective. This didn’t quite happen but I see a lot of room for that in the next book.

- The book deals with issues of race and exploitation in an okay way.

I think Turner’s story was important to tell, and his actions in the moment of his flashback made the most sense for a “sympathetic cop” character to me, but all the same, his decision to not leave the force even after this traumatic moment in his career feels maybe disingenuous to me? I wish there had been more follow up about how this moment affected him afterwards. In fact, his emotionlessness being sort of explained away as a defense mechanism or a technique he developed for professional settings does not bode well for me. A Black character, by a white author, written to have no emotions? In the face of an extremely painful and fucked up line of work that sees the death of a lot of Black people? I’m sure Bardugo did her best to deal with it, but I assume it’s near impossible to do justice to Turner’s storyline in her position. Still processing this.

That’s what I’ve observed and analyzed about the situation with regard to Bardugo writing a Black character in a low fantasy setting.

I could say more but I’m done ranting for now. This book truly thrilled me and I was happy to delve into this world again.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Body horror, Drug use, Hate crime, Misogyny, Murder, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Classism, Confinement, Addiction, Alcohol, Cursing, Drug use, Sexism, Slavery, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Medical content, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Self harm