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chloenrogers's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Death and Murder
Minor: Domestic abuse and Terminal illness
scrubsandbooks's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, and Vomit
Moderate: Infidelity
Minor: Physical abuse
thecatconstellation's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Terminal illness, Violence, Vomit, Grief, and Alcohol
Minor: Gore, Sexual content, Blood, Pregnancy, and Classism
maeverose's review against another edition
2.75
TL;DR: Loved the beginning, meh towards the end. Love the atmosphere, the secret garden vibes. This is new adult not YA. The romance was highly problematic.
The first half of this book was an easy 5 stars, but the second half was more of a 3 at best. (And in hindsight, the problematic romance just kinda tainted the whole book…)
🖤 🖤 🖤
The thing I loved the most was the atmosphere and writing. The descriptions in this book are so vivid and atmospheric I could clearly picture everything in my mind. I want to be in this world. I love immersive writing, especially in a gothic book, it’s one of the number one things I look for and this definitely delivers on that.
I loved the secret garden vibes. I don’t know if it was intentional but this definitely feels like a gothic retelling almost of the secret garden. Lots of similarities.
💔 💔 💔
I’m very picky with mortal x immortal pairings because they often feel icky. This one did. Without spoilers, Death met her as a two month old baby and kept an eye on her from then until she was 19, when the book takes place.
Signa is so focused on men the entire book when she’s supposed to be focused on saving someone’s life, something that’s incredibly urgent. There was a love triangle that while reading I felt was entirely unnecessary and just took up space in the book that should’ve focused on the actual plot.
Another thing about the romance is that it gets a bit steamier than I would say is appropriate for YA. There’s an on page sex scene that’s somewhat explicit, and besides that Signa is just very horny throughout the book. I would categorize this as new adult, not young adult. I feel like authors forget that the target age range of YA is 12-17. I would not give this to anyone younger than 16, personally.
Signa is very obsessed with being a ‘proper lady’ throughout most of the book and I found those parts to be very annoying. If she had grown out of that mindset earlier I wouldn’t have minded it so much because it does make sense given the time period and her high class status that she’d care about that, but it was overdone imo.
While I loved the writing in the first half, after that it started to feel overwritten and like it was trying too hard to be poetic at certain parts. It started to drag on a bit as well and was a bit repetitive at times. Kinda felt like the author wrote the book in order and got burnt out towards the end.
About the end reveal of who did it:
A very subjective issue: I just don’t like YA. Even though this has more adult themes it’s still written like YA. The main character is very naive (understandably so, but still), she’s so focused on boys instead of the very pressing situation going on, and there’s unnecessary petty drama with some of the other girls her age. I feel like these are common tropes in YA. Maybe it’s just because I’m an adult and don’t like those things but I remember disliking those things when I was a teenager as well so… I just would’ve preferred if this had been written as adult and the characters were more mature and less easily distracted by cute men.
Graphic: Death, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Gore, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Blood, Vomit, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Religious bigotry and Suicide attempt
Graphic: poisoning Moderate: description of a broken neck Minor: an implication that having a lot of sexual partners leads to ‘diseases’aglittercobra's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Overall,
This one was a lovely surprise for me. As per usual, I did not really know much about this book going in. I did not read the blurb, I just thought the cover was pretty and I know what belladonna is so I was like yea sure lets give this a try. This book is a wide range of genres. YA, Fantasy, Paranormal, Mystery maybe a dash of Horror. I really don't want to give anything away about the plot, so I will just say this, there is pretty good character development, I liked all the characters and the world building was pretty well done. At the heart of this book there is a mystery that I had a pretty good idea about before it was revealed, though I did not guess everything which I did enjoyed.
Cover,
I have the US first edition version that has beautiful artwork under the dust jacket. The cover itself I beautiful and as I said before it drew me in enough to buy it.
Recommendation,
You should read this book, if you are interested in reading a Gothic paranormal (think death and ghosts), mystery novels. There is a romance subplot with very little spice (maybe 1 chili pepper). Some trigger warnings but nothing super gorey, or detailed. This is definitely properly labeled as a YA.
Moderate: Death, Terminal illness, Grief, and Death of parent
jamiebrito's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, and Abandonment
Minor: Animal death and Fire/Fire injury
rampant_reading's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
I am beyond delighted that there will be a sequel to Belladonna, called Foxglove, coming out in 2023, because I am not at all ready to be finished with Signa’s adventures. Before the next book comes out, I am planning on listening to the audiobook version, as I just know that this book will be one that is even better upon re-reading.
My Recommendation-
Graphic: Death and Terminal illness
Moderate: Sexual content, Violence, Grief, and Murder
Minor: Self harm
jmacminn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
This was such a pleasure to listen to that I finished it in one day. A murder mystery wrapped into a Hades and Persephone retelling that had me guessing at every turn.
Signa Farrow is an orphan who is cursed by Death. Since her parents death every guardian who has taken her in has died, however, Signa herself cannot die. She knows this because she has met death multiple times, whether by a fall of the stairs or by Belladonna, and each time he does not take her to the next realm.
When her most recent guardian is killed Signa is sent to live with the Hawthorne family who are grieving the loss of their Matriarch. When the spirit of Lillian comes to Signa to tell her there was foul play, Signa must find out who killed Lillian in order to save Blythe who is consumed by the same "illness" as her mother.
I loved the "not like other girls" trope that was turned on its head in this story. Signa was so desperate to try to fit into society like her mother had before her, and her struggle to be accepted in polite society while it goes against her whole personality is a great twist. I also loved the genuine female connection in this story, there was just enough tension that the struggle of this time wasn't glossed over but Blythe and Signa's relationship was great to read.
TLDR: Similar to a Pride and Prejuidice retelling, Hades and Persephone retellings have my heart and this was an extremely fun one to listen to and I will absolutely be going out to be a copy of both this book.
Minor: Child abuse, Death, Infidelity, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol