Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Death Masks

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

evueimeimei's review

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adventurous tense fast-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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ineffablebob's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This fifth Harry Dresden novel is effectively a direct sequel to the third book, with more holy knights and vampires. I thought this half of the story was a lot better, though that might be mostly because I'm more used to the over-the-top magical shenanigans. My one major complaint in this one is that the coda at the very end has a very anti-climactic resolution to one of the major villains of the story.

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defenders_iris's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

It sure is a Dresden book! After the lows of the 2nd book and highs of the 3rd book, this strikes me as the most middle of the road story.

The stakes here are much higher than previous books which is a lot of fun. Gives a satisfying conclusion while still leaving the door open for a million possibilities for the story.

There is an incredibly random sex scene in this book that is very jarring given the established lore, and very awkwardly written on top of that.

Michael still best boy. :)

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ggcd1981's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

First let me give a brief summary of Death Masks,

Harry is challenged to a duel by São Paulo University’s Professor Don Paolo Ortega, a disguised Red Court Vampire noble who wants to end the war between the Red Court and The White Council as soon as possible because he has his own plans. Dresden is also hired by a Vatican priest, Father Vincent, for a secret mission, to recover the stolen Shroud of Turin. Related to this case some gruesome murders have been executed. Johnny Marcone is somehow connected with this mystery and the man shows some more layers to his character. Susan Rodriguez comes back as a badass half vampire who works against The Red Court and she stirs up old feelings in Dresden. Also the book introduces a new faction, The Denarians. They are 30 fallen angels who reside in Judas Iscariot's 30 denarii of silver.

Now to my opinions, after Summer Knight I thought Jim Butcher was willing to treat his female characters a little better…no, he is still at his old Sexist, Misogynistic bullshit. He still is mistaking “White Knighting” for chivalry. Dear Butcher, these two concepts are not the same. Do better. I will just go straight to the point that really pissed me off in this volume: Jim Butcher chose to write a pointless scene when a fourteen years old child, the daughter of Harry’s best friend, changes her clothes in front of creepy Dresden, who, of course, cannot help to notice her underwear. People often use the argument “these are the character’s thoughts not the author’s”. No, my friends, writing a scene of a minor changing clothes in front of an adult, a scene that has no relevance at all to the plot or to the characters, is a choice Butcher made and there is no justification or rational explanation to why this had to happen in the scene. He went as far as making Dresden notice the young girl’s underwear. At one point of the book Dresden compares himself to Peter Parker (Spider-man). I had already noticed that the author wanted Harry to be his own version of Peter Parker, but sorry to inform you Butcher, Dresden is nowhere near the man that Peter is. Spider-man would never objectify women as Harry does, especially underage girls. Jim Butcher please don’t give me reasons to believe you are a pedophile. I do not want to come to this conclusion, but those kind of pointless scenes are not helping. Please just keep your supposedly “good guy” characters away from underage girls. Thank you. As for the rest of the book, it was good. Every other character BUT Dresden, plus the world building are the reasons I’m still reading this series. The mystery plot in Death Masks was pretty interesting. Some characters had a deeper development such as Marcone and Susan, which I really enjoyed. Other interesting characters were also introduced: Shiro, Sanya, The Archive, Kincaid, etc. The plot, as for all The Dresden Files volumes, has its holes. Sometimes that world’s logic is a bit muddy and things are often too convenient in the story, but overall it was an entertaining book.

The cliffhanger of Dresden touching one of the silver denarii and later burying the coin deep on his basement intrigued me. I wonder how the story will develop from there.

Nonetheless, the author’s issues with female characters and the fact that Harry Dresden is a creepy pervert keep me from giving a Dresden sequel anything higher than 3 stars.

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