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frantic_vampire's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
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? No
4.0
This was a really fun read! I honestly don’t know why I waited so long to read it. I loved Perle and Dejean so much! I loved getting to see the queerplatonic relationship that developed between them over the course of the book. They made this beautiful connection that led to them making a pod based on trust and a willingness to help those that need a place to recover or rest or that need a home. They just kind of started collecting people little by little. I also loved just how queer this whole book was! It was really nice. Our Bloody Pearl is getting a four out of five stars from me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Gore, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Body horror, Confinement, Torture, Trafficking, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Ableism
cheye13's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
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? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Confinement, Torture, and Death
Moderate: Ableism, Murder, and Gore
Minor: Death of parent and Trafficking
It's hard to align this story with typical warnings, as the sirens aren't human, but aren't fully animal. The majority of the content warnings apply to the treatment of sirens, mostly predictable from the synopsis.amysreading_nook's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
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? No
3.5
TW: blood, near-drowning, violence, implied torture (not explicit)
REP: f/f relationship, non-binary/genderfluid character (uses they/them pronouns and changes gender), character uses mobility aid on fin/tail, use of sign language to communicate
4/67 TBR
I really wanted to love this one but there was just something about it that I couldn't quite connect with. The characters were good and diverse but I felt underdeveloped to an extent. We see them in quite a limited zone - mostly just one room - and whilst the relationships are established I never felt quite sucked in by them. Perle is a brilliant character and I really enjoyed their wit and humour but I never quite grasped where they changed their mind on humans and how it happened quite quickly. They've spent a period of time being tortured but they seem to trust other humans quite quickly. I feel this could have been better if it was more character focused rather than plot focused. I just couldn't quite picture what was happening or what Perle even looked like so I just felt disconnected from the story. This is definitely more of a personal issue than the book itself and I would recommend picking this one up if you love pirates and mermaids, it just wasn't a complete winner for me.
REP: f/f relationship, non-binary/genderfluid character (uses they/them pronouns and changes gender), character uses mobility aid on fin/tail, use of sign language to communicate
4/67 TBR
I really wanted to love this one but there was just something about it that I couldn't quite connect with. The characters were good and diverse but I felt underdeveloped to an extent. We see them in quite a limited zone - mostly just one room - and whilst the relationships are established I never felt quite sucked in by them. Perle is a brilliant character and I really enjoyed their wit and humour but I never quite grasped where they changed their mind on humans and how it happened quite quickly. They've spent a period of time being tortured but they seem to trust other humans quite quickly. I feel this could have been better if it was more character focused rather than plot focused. I just couldn't quite picture what was happening or what Perle even looked like so I just felt disconnected from the story. This is definitely more of a personal issue than the book itself and I would recommend picking this one up if you love pirates and mermaids, it just wasn't a complete winner for me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood and Violence
Minor: Torture
minervacerridwen's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
relaxing
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
3.0
At the start of the book I'd have given Our Bloody Pearl 4 stars, but in the second half only 2 - though I did like the very end. I think I didn't quite have the right expectations for this story after seeing several people say that this was a comfort read for them; it turned out to contain a lot more persistent violence and torture than I expected from that description. However, let's start with the things I loved: the story pulled me in right from the start, and I immediately liked the main character and the way the "foreign" siren logic was presented in first-person pov. The other characters were also likeable and I felt we got to know them very quickly, which helped to connect to the story right away. The first half of the book was very easy to read and the fast pace kept me intrigued. And of course there's a lot of queer representation: the sirens having different views on gender than humans, as well as ace, trans, polyam, and F/F representation among the humans. I discovered the book through GreatAce.Club, so that was awesome!
But somewhere about halfway, there was an event in the story that made me like the main character less.Namely, Perle makes the selfish decision of returning to the cove with the humans very soon after another siren, Storm, hurt Dejean. I'm not a siren and yet I realised that surely Storm would still be there, but Perle was apparently happy to risk the lives of their human 'pod'. This really bothered me because it could so easily have been avoided!
From that point on, we were thrown from one action scene to the next fight and yet another threat, and perhaps it was because it took me a long while to find time to read again, but it no longer felt to me like the intriguing series of events that it had been at the start. I was happy when the end of the story was in sight. Still, the story had a proper climax, and I think it's impressive that the writer pulled that off after so many other action scenes! But all in all, I think the second half of the book simply didn't come at the right time for me to read.
But somewhere about halfway, there was an event in the story that made me like the main character less.
From that point on, we were thrown from one action scene to the next fight and yet another threat, and perhaps it was because it took me a long while to find time to read again, but it no longer felt to me like the intriguing series of events that it had been at the start. I was happy when the end of the story was in sight. Still, the story had a proper climax, and I think it's impressive that the writer pulled that off after so many other action scenes! But all in all, I think the second half of the book simply didn't come at the right time for me to read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Torture
Moderate: Death
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