Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - The Brothers Hawthorne

Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

13 reviews

kimveach's review against another edition

adventurous challenging medium-paced

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

3.5

I enjoyed the first three books in this series, but this one wasn't as good for me. The number of characters continues to grow, and you need to have remembered people from the previous books. I didn't remember them all, which made me feel like I was missing something. If I had reread the last book or were reading it in a row (the way I would have as a teen), it would have been as exciting as the first three. I'll give up on this series now.

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oceanwriter's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

The Inheritance Games is my guilty pleasure series. It’s so wild and something I wouldn’t normally enjoy, alas, here I am for the fourth installment. Though this wasn’t my favorite in the series, it was still a fun time by the end.

Brothers Grayson and Jameson are at the forefront of the games this time around with a heavy focus on Grayson and his sisters. We see some over Avery, but this one is ultimately for the boys.

It looks like I’m not alone in feeling like the first half of the book dragged. I was, frankly, so bored that at one point I stopped reading during a commute and opted just to stare out the train window instead. It took a little while to pick back up again. Thankfully, the last third of the book picked up immensely.

Of all the brothers, Grayson and Jameson are the ones I care about the least. I felt like Jameson’s story was summed up decently in The Final Gambit alongside Avery. Grayson? Meh. I’m a Nash girl. (Side note: I think a lot of this book tried to amplify a reader attraction to the brothers and I am not in the age group where I have any interest on that front. So that was weird.) I was disappointed that we didn’t see much of Nash and Xander.

The book left me more confused than pumped for another installment. There are questions left unanswered but without an urgency that was found midway through the first two books. I don’t think this book needed to exist to make the series complete. Will I read a fifth book? Sure. Will I have the same level of excitement I initially had about book four? No.

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itstruly_flower's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging 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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avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

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emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

The first The Inheritance Games full-length book strictly from the Hawthorne brothers' POV.
I know this is probably the publisher's fault, not the authors, but I hated that it was two different stories going on at once and switching back and forth. This book really should have been two separate books! The constantly switching POVs took me out of the story. I would have preferred it as book 1 and book 2, one with Jameson's story and one with Grayson's. Plus, they didn't even have different narrators for each brother!
I didn't enjoy this book nearly as much as the others. I don't know if that's because this is the first one I listened to on audio, or if it's because of the problem of it being too long and the POV switching all the time.
Overall it was okay to good, but nowhere near great. It was also a bit predictable.

Narrator Rating: 3 stars
The narrator was good at doing different voices. But not great at changing tone for mood shifts. And didn't use much emotion in the reading.

Extra ratings: Fluff - 3/5 Heartfelt- 2/5 Helpful -NA Horror -NA Inspiration -NA Love aka Romance- 2.5/5 Mystery -2/5 Predictability -3.75/5 Spice-0.5/5 Suspense - NA Tear- 2/5 Thrill - 1.5/5 Humor-2.5/5

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prashiie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

4.0

“Let the rest of the players think I'm dealing with daddy issues. Hawthornes have granddaddy issues instead.”

A fun extra book where we get to see more of Jameson, Avery and Grayson. Unfortunately we don’t see a lot of Nash and Xavier. I think we can even add Avery to this list. They are present, but we only get to see Jameson and Grayson’s perspective. Jameson and Grayson both have to deal with their father’s side of the family. Jameson’s father asks Jameson a favour and Grayson wants to protect his little sisters and in turn meets Sheffield’s wife. I always enjoy reading about stepmothers that are good to their stepchildren, so I loved Acacia! She’s so sensible.

"I would like to believe," Acacia continued softly, "that I'm the kind of person who would never hold a child responsible for the actions of his parents."

Even Gigi, Grayson’s little sister, is adorable and incredibly funny.

"May his crotch forever itch in places that are very difficult to scratch and his fingers turn to sausages on his hands."

Grayson also struggles with his loyalties and the loneliness he feels. So I hated it when Eve showed up playing the victim! As if Grayson didn’t have enough problems, ugh.

And throughout the story, Jameson was talking about a big secret that he couldn’t even share with Avery. When the secret was revealed, at the very end of the story, I was amazed. Definitely wasn’t expecting that, though now I’m very excited for the next book! I have so many questions that hopefully will be answered in ‘The Grandest Game’. How unfortunate that we have to wait until next year, but worth it!

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