Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

24 reviews

solenekeleroux's review

emotional inspiring lighthearted 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? It's complicated

5.0

I loved this book so much, it's one of my new favorites. 
I'm not at all a team sports fan, so I didn't know if I would enjoy it, but it's about so much more than sports. It's really about a team turned coven using dark powers to become their true full liberated selves. The collective narration is so good, I loved the magic, the wild moments of dancing under the moon, the sexual liberation stories. I loved how it is funny but also lyrical at times, the writing is beautiful. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Stalking

Moderate: Sexual content, Animal death, Cultural appropriation, Adult/minor relationship, Racism, and Homophobia

Minor: Rape

summer_reading's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, and Sexual content

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Animal death

amberthomasmsc's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Animal death

libbyhb's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious 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

4.5

This book took me around 75 pages to fully get into, but once I did I had such a good time with it! The writing is unlike anything I've read before (at least recently), and it was honestly refreshing. I liked how as we moved through the main story, each character was given their time to shine. Those character features made me love each member of the team in turn as we went along - although I wish we had gotten some more on Girl Cory, Abby Putnam, and Mel Boucher. I do understand why they were treated differently than the others, though! I loved the way their plans got more and more blown out of proportion until they essentially exploded. I think my main issue was how things were wrapped up and revealed in the second to last chapter. Some of the endings didn't feel fully earned (Mel's especially). I did actually like the epilogue chapter, it was cute. I did like this overall, though, and would recommend it if you're getting tired of reading the same kind of book over and over. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Sexual content

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Animal death

peachani's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-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? Yes

2.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, and Stalking

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Cultural appropriation, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Racism, Sexual harassment, and Violence

Minor: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, and Vomit

yavin_iv's review against another edition

adventurous funny 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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racism, Sexual content, Drug use, Bullying, Blood, and Animal death

Minor: Rape, Pregnancy, Death of parent, and Lesbophobia

awashinfeeling's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

astronut's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia

Moderate: Sexual content and Animal death

Minor: Stalking, Racism, Infidelity, Drug use, Death, and Adult/minor relationship

lectora21's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

2.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Cursing, Drug use, Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Vomit

house_of_hannah's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? Yes

2.5

This book takes place in 1989, and is basically a love letter to the 80s. It is overflowing with references, but I was born in 1991, and unfortunately a lot of them went over my head. It made reading this not flow very well, and when I did know a reference it just felt so much smoother, and could even change the meaning of a paragraph or sentence. It just makes me wonder how much I missed by not understanding everything. 

The story itself moved at a great pace in the beginning, but then it shifted to where each chapter focused more on an individual character. It definitely slowed things down, and made it to where there would be all this exposition on the individual's family, upbringing, feelings, and then it would gloss over an event that happened in just a few sentences. This really started to bother me at the end when the climax of the story was just a few paragraphs tucked into a flashback. 

This book also has a lot of characters. To the point where the author uses their full names quite often. I was fine with keeping the main group of characters straight, but it was just too much to try and keep up with all the side characters. I also found the switching between the parents first names and Mr/Mrs so-and-so confusing, especially when there were a lot of characters in a scene. 

I picked up this book for the witchcraft, but it went in a different direction than I was expecting. I did enjoy those aspects of the story, but not understanding the 80s references was just a hinderance in my enjoyment of this book. The climax for me also fell flat. I liked that it became a coming of age story, but I don't think the plot should have been left behind to accomplish that. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Animal death and Homophobia