Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Blood and Ash - Liebe kennt keine Grenzen: Jennifer L. Armentrouts Weltbestseller in prachtvoller Deluxe-Ausstattung mit spektakulärem Farbschnitt. Roman by Jennifer L. Armentrout

166 reviews

rambling_woods's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I’m at a loss for words. This book had me kicking my feet and squealing, crying my eyes out, and screaming “WTF!?” This book took me for a ride and I was SO on board. The main plot focuses on romance pieces, but the world building is awesome and it all comes into play. Also, Armentrout’s handling of purity culture and abuse and the shame that it creates was so gut wrenching, I can’t stop thinking about how terribly and beautifully accurate it felt. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood

Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual harassment

Minor: Sexual assault

passionatereader78's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Sexual harassment, War, Classism

trapjawjones's review against another edition

5.0

challenging funny mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child death, Emotional abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent, Sexual harassment, War, Classism

ksilvio's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging funny lighthearted 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

xosmitten's review against another edition

1.75

dark tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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I became intrigued in the last chapter, up until then I wasn’t going to read the next book, so the author did a good job there. The book moved too slow, it felt like things were happening but also weren’t idk how to explain it. 

I also don’t find the main character to be very strong vs the male. She immediately slept with him and is even still angry about her assuming he faked his feelings and he gets off easy.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail

syd_sorrell's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Fun start to a series about sexy vampires, challenging authority, political conspiracy, war, and sexual expression. Positives include a nice slow burn romance, realistic depictions of navigating  self-discovery, sexual expression in a sexually repressive culture, interesting world, and compelling themes of religious influence on politics, purity culture, and control. Negatives include repetitive prose, info dumping style world building at times, predictable plot twists, and most of the plot-driven movement taking place in the last quarter of the book, which may make the pacing feel odd for some people. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood

Moderate: Physical abuse, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Murder, Sexual harassment, War

bpreads7's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War

allipwells's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Murder

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child death, Confinement

afishinmn's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark medium-paced

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Rating this from a re-read. This series really fell off a cliff for me so I figured I’d revisit the first one. Knowing where and how it goes impacted my review. The hints for how messy the series would get were all there in the last 20% - it read like a “reveal” once upon a time but now felt like “idk we haven’t figured out what our plot will be so we’ll leave lots of doors open.” I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone else. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment

wonderedpages's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark emotional 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

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From Blood and Ash had so much promise: a fierce girl with a blade, a seductive, brooding immortal prince, and a dark fantasy world full of political intrigue and secrets. But what could have been a gripping, steamy epic instead got bogged down in repetitive inner monologues, a glacially paced first half, and a romance that asked me to suspend disbelief just a bit too much.

I’ll give Jennifer L. Armentrout this: the lore is dense and detailed. Vampiric castes, culty kingdoms, and magical bloodlines. I actually enjoyed unraveling the hierarchy of Atlantians, Ascended, Craven, and Wolven. The problem? It takes over 300 pages for the story to do anything with all that setup. I could’ve skipped straight to page 313 and missed nothing of importance except Poppy’s self-indulgent thoughts and a dozen lectures disguised as dialogue.

Poppy, our “Maiden,” was raised in isolation by a religious cult and spends the majority of the book

ping-ponging between being a sheltered, naive narrator and a total badass with a dagger.

The latter was great. The former? Painfully frustrating. I understood her confusion and repression, but wow, the girl’s curiosity rarely translated into actual intelligence. Still, I appreciated the subtle realism in how abuse, gaslighting, and captivity have shaped her. She’s learning, even if slowly.

Now let’s talk Hawke.

Or Casteel. Or “The Dark One.” Or Mr. Sex Scene Monologue. He’s a 200+ year old prince-turned-rogue who somehow falls for this cult-brainwashed teenager because she holds his hand a couple of times and says sassy things. Their chemistry was hot, I’ll admit. The sex scenes were the best part of the book; detailed, consensual, and actually sexy. Casteel talks her through pleasure, praises her fighting spirit, and treats her like an equal (once you ignore the kidnapping and marriage plans, minor details, right?). But the insta-love was a big eye-roll, especially considering his age, experience, and mission.

There were some solid twists, but I called most of them chapters before they happened.

Hawke being an Atlantian? Obvious. The Ascended lying about the gods? Called it. Poppy being half-Atlantian? I mean… come on.

If this had been a tighter, better-paced 250-page book, it could’ve really landed. But slogging through Poppy’s repetitive veil-wearing monologues and everyone avoiding direct answers wore me out.

I won’t be continuing the series,

though I’ll miss Hawke whispering filth in the snow and praising Poppy’s stabby side. A man who admires your violence and talks you through an orgasm? Unmatched.

But not enough to save the book for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual harassment

Minor: Cursing, Infidelity, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Toxic friendship, War