Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - The Ink Black Heart

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

31 reviews

brandilovesbooks's review against another edition

challenging 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? No

2.75

I was so eager to read this new installment, but spent the majority of the booking forcing myself to trudge through. The last 15% of this book was great. The rest of it, though. The case was extremely complex. It was very difficult to keep track of who was who. This was exaggerated by the Twitter conversations and in game conversations under different names. Robin and Strike's relationship was extremely annoying despite the fact that I have previously loved them. I found myself wondering what point JK Rowling was trying to make about the underlying messages in the cartoon and not coming up with an answer.

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kathrynamonett's review against another edition

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jhbandcats's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense 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

4.25

I love the Cormoran Strike series. Rowling (aka, Galbraith) is an accomplished storyteller who can handle multiple characters and a complex storyline. Here she shows a facility with online gaming that, to me as a non-gamer, is mind-boggling. While I really respect her talent, I found the story so complex that I need to go back and reread this to see what I missed. Definitely recommend the entire series starting with The Cuckoo’s Calling.

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romonko's review

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challenging dark emotional 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

3.5

Perhaps it is my age, or perhaps it's my total indifference to social media and all its iterations like Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, instagram, but I truly did not get really into this book like I usually do with this series. The mystery was a good one, and it finally did get really exciting at the end. And that is another of the things that caused me to shake my head - the sheer length of the book! 1,300 odd pages is a lot of book! The writing is superb as well, but I did find some of the dialogues and transcripts of Twitter feeds and internet chats far too graphic for my tastes. I was extremely uncomfortable through about 30% of the book, but the other 70% held me enthralled. There is no doubt that Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling) is a very skilled and talented author, and her characterizations are incredible. In this book Corm and Robin's detective agency are run off their feet with business. Then along comes a visitor that Robin meets. A young Gothic woman who has a very strange tale to tell about her on-line cartoon called The Ink Black Heart and the on-line abuse that she is receiving.. Robin is intrigued but knows that they're too busy to take on this case. Then Robin hears that the young woman is killed and her boyfriend was stabbed in the very graveyard on which her story is based. So Corm, Robin and their three contract detectives are on the tail of a particularly odious killer. At much risk to Comoran and Robin and to their business they continue on the quest to find a killer who uses the internet as his/her hunting ground. This is a particularly horrifying book, and probably realistically illustrates the danger of on-line relationships and influences. And it reminds parents that they must be particularly vigilant in monitoring their offspring's on-line footprint. Rowling has shown us in this book what a truly scary world we live in now. Although I did not like the format and the pages and pages of internet-speak, I still enjoyed the story, and I love Comoran and Robin and will eagerly awake the next instalment.

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