Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Ritual by Shantel Tessier

152 reviews

dejanai1's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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adaskam's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have had a few days to stew on this book and I still come to the same conclusion. I simply did not enjoy this as much as I thought I would because of how much I disliked the FMC. Blakely started meh and had absolutely zero character development or progression. Her I’m weak, I’m strong routine got old fast and I just found myself rolling my eyes far too much to enjoy it. Ryat knew how to put it down 🍆, so I’ll give stars for that. Also stars for the narration! 👏 Finally, I didn’t know until this book how drugging someone in fiction land is just not my thing, who would have thought?! 🤷‍♀️ I’m listening to the next book in the series and crossing my fingers the next FMC is it! 🤞

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kdb_0620's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

5.0


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meganlaza's review against another edition

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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? N/A

5.0


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cinderellaeyes's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Check your TWs!

The book was great; it was engaging, the world building was pretty interesting BUT I had some issues with it as a whole.

The way the names of songs appeared throughout the book was pretty annoying. I didn’t enjoy that at all. Seemed forced and the writing became awkward. 

I wish we could find out more about Ryat’s background and why he decided to serve in the society. I wanted a bit more backstory, wanted to know more about the society itself and while we learnt a little about the society at the end, we didn’t really learn too much about why it is what it is and what’s the purpose of this. I wanted to see and understand more about the Lord and Lady concept which was honestly very interesting. I know it’s a whole series but if I were to just read this one book I suppose I won’t get the full picture of the world built.

I felt that the ending
for Matt, didn’t really do much justice. I felt like he was such a bad guy that he deserved to die a little bit more tortured than this.


My last bit is that it’s marked as a dark college romance and while they all met at school, nothing actually happens IN school. In fact they stop going to school after meeting each other so there’s that.
Blakely’s best friend Sarah also eventually disappeared
in writing, only appearing as a tool to progress the story arcs. 

I hope we get to see a book that features the kids. That would be really interesting for me.

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emily511's review against another edition

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This book just really wasn’t for me.  The multitudes of trigger warnings aside, there just wasn’t much of a plot.

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thenovelbookshelf's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This year is my year to read more romance, and this is my first read in dark college romance. Thanks BookTok!
  
This felt like reading an AITA where ETA because money, entitlement, and secret societies.
  
While I actually enjoyed the supposed actual storyline, the characters smashing every other page just got too much. I mean, how many ways can they do the same thing and still be so surprised she likes it?!
  
Morally grey, dark, and quite spicy.

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smilestarshine's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0


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wandering_seal's review against another edition

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

4.0

Look it was fine. There are some really fucking questionable decisions going on storywise - the
kiddos names at the end
for one, and the weird need to write out the name and artist of every song they hear playing.

This is one of those books where I'm somehow meant to believe the MMC has only had sex as a teenager and has been abstinent for the past three years before getting a pet sex slave and is somehow amazing at everything he wants to do with a solid working knowledge of all the kinks and how to navigate our FMCs body. Oh and he's a super awesome killer. With a future in law. Yep. Yeah. The suspension of disbelief was hard in this one.

I think you know what your getting into with these books. The lack of kinkshaming was really nice, and the emphasis on consent was also good considering this is a story with lots of dubcon aspects. I listened to it on audiobook at twice speed so the length of the plot didn't really bother me, but it is a loooong story and the later part in particular could have been tightened up.

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lifeofmavsgirl's review against another edition

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dark

3.0


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