Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Hell Bent

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

155 reviews

lilymeibean's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

another addition to the alex stern series and i’m not sure how entirely to feel about it — the book picked up near the end but i feel like it’s drifting further and further away from dark academia and into a newer magic-centric world (which there’s nothing wrong with — but it’s very different from how the first was set up).

the story starts off pretty slow in this book till about the 60% mark and then it races to the end — which has its ups and downs, thank you

darlington

for providing us with your too-few witty remarks <3 there were a few time-skip moments that didn’t weave together as seamlessly as i’ve seen done before, they felt a bit repetitive at times. the plot twists did in fact catch me a little by surprise which was nice! i’ll probably stick with the series moving forward just to see where it goes but it def has a few weaknesses i hope won’t evolve in the next addition!

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szuum'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? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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cwolf83's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-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

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twocats_witchery's review

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adventurous dark mysterious 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

3.5

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jzpaul's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.5

Leigh Bardugo🤝🏻V.E. Schwab
Only writing incredible books
When people ask me for fantasy or sci-fi recommendations, I'm almost always going to recommend these two authors, and from now on this series will be at the top.
Now for this book specifically: I absolutely loved it. Going to need a reread bc with the heavy detail and complex story line I feel like I missed something important. Much faster paced than Ninth House, I couldn't put the book down start to finish. The plot twists, wtf moments and pure shock factor of Ninth House carried over into the sequel and the story and writing were incredible.
Because I used the audio book for this, at times the time jumps chapter to chapter were confusing at times, leading me to feel like I may have missed information. But when reading the hard copy of Ninth House I had no issue with the time jumps so I plan on rereading with a hard copy and I would recommend others use hard copies for this series as well.

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constancet's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

4.5

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folkofthebook's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny 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? It's complicated

5.0

“Galaxy Stern,” Darlington said, his eyes flashing gold, “I have been crying out to you from the start.”

nothing makes me happier than when the second book lives up to the first book. and when it's even better?? 😩🤌🏼

“But I like this life better.”
“Better than what?”
“Better than what I was living before. Better than a world without magic.”

this is one of those series i read and can't help but feel envious of both the characters and the author. the characters for getting to live this life, and the author for having been able to dream it up.

“Life is cruel. Magic is real. And I’m not ready to die.”

one character that i really came to adore was mercy. i feel like she was all of us readers, wishing so badly to find a way in to live magic and leave the real world behind. tripp was also a very endearing character who brought some lighthearted comic relief in as well. i did not care for hellie after this book, esp bc the babbit rabbit story.

“Fuck off.”
“I did miss you, Stern.”

the agonizing slowburn of alex & darlington is SO DELICIOUS oh my god i just know the pay off is going to be well worth it.

“Come on, Darlington,” she said. “Let's give them hell.”

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dearhaleynicole's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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

5.0

I LOVED this sequel to Ninth House! The eerie setting was still there but Leigh really built on what she did with the first book. I thought the stakes were there and big fan of more Darlington in this book. For obvious reasons if you read Ninth House.

Had no idea there was set to be a sequel but that makes me so happy because I need more!!

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rainyghost's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

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saucy_bookdragon's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.0

Hell Bent is an absolutely wild sequel to Ninth House, so much so there's literally a glowing demon dick and its just a minor thing. It's not even for smut its just there!

In this sequel, the crew is trying to figure out how to get into hell. Its an overall improvement on the first book! Its got a more intriguing and unhinged plot, Alex and the side characters have a lot more personality and development, and this is more solidly dark academia (especially with a focus on mythology and theology, we also finally find out what Alex is majoring in it's English). And where I found Ninth House to have inconsistent pacing and a disappointing answer to the mystery, I was m0re engaged with Hell Bent and the ending had me gagged!

Though I do wish this had addressed some of the other problems from book one. In particular, Alex still has some stereotypes tied to her Latina identity and Hellie is still not a character outside of Alex's own trauma. Though this book doesn't make these problems worse, it could have improved them.

~~Also Alex and Dawes are definitely in love I don't care if Darlington is also in love with Alex and probably endgame Dawes has more chemistry.~~

TWs: this book is about the same level of triggering as the first one, a little less so actually since there isn't any on page sexual assault. That said, there is a scene with animal death (a rabbit) that was gory and difficult to read. Other TWs are violence, gore, death, horror elements, murder, drug use, mentions of racism including slavery and police brutality, misogyny, spiders.

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