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takarakei's review against another edition
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? Yes
5.0
"There is a game that the immortals play. The stakes are impossibly high and yet laughably low. There is only one secret: The more you have to lose, the harder it is to win. There is only one rule: Don't lose."
Masters of Death asks the question what is the price of immortality? We follow several creatures: vampire, ghost, demigod, demon, angel, reaper... and a mortal whom is the godson of Death, as they navigate a treacherous game played by immortals. The inter-character dynamics are top notch. This book is full of witty banter, laugh out loud moments, and a bit of heartbreak (it wouldn't be an Olivie book without some).
I truly don't understand how Olivie Blake's mind comes up with these stories. I'm in awe of her writing. She has such a particular way of describing things so beautifully that scratches a part of my brain. Her characters are so interesting, complex and well developed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Abandonment, and Death
Moderate: Addiction, Toxic relationship, and Blood
Minor: Death of parent, Confinement, and Infidelity
jessiereads98's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
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
5.0
Masters of Death is a delightful and weird adventure. A vampire, a ghost, a demon, an angel, a reaper, a demigod, and the godson of death walk into a haunted house then have to save Death. Hijinks and poignant relationships ensue.
I love Olivie Blake’s prose, and her unique style is just as present here as it has been in previous works. She injects more humour here than previous books that I loved. It’s all very dry and matched my sense of humour well, I found myself laughing at several points. The humour juxtaposes well to highlight Blake’s themes. The fantastical systems are corrupt in the most mundane and human of ways, and by not accounting for the humanity they supposedly oversee, they fail.
This is a weird book (in the best way), but at its heart this is a story about coming to terms with change, growing, relationships, and love both platonic and romantic. Blake shines in her character work here as usual. All these characters have gone through what on the surface seem like unusual major events (undeath in its various forms), but end up being intensely relatable as the characters find themselves and grow around and from massive upheaval. What’s beautiful is how the characters find each other, and how through that love find themselves as well.
I love Olivie Blake’s prose, and her unique style is just as present here as it has been in previous works. She injects more humour here than previous books that I loved. It’s all very dry and matched my sense of humour well, I found myself laughing at several points. The humour juxtaposes well to highlight Blake’s themes. The fantastical systems are corrupt in the most mundane and human of ways, and by not accounting for the humanity they supposedly oversee, they fail.
This is a weird book (in the best way), but at its heart this is a story about coming to terms with change, growing, relationships, and love both platonic and romantic. Blake shines in her character work here as usual. All these characters have gone through what on the surface seem like unusual major events (undeath in its various forms), but end up being intensely relatable as the characters find themselves and grow around and from massive upheaval. What’s beautiful is how the characters find each other, and how through that love find themselves as well.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Death, Murder, Toxic relationship, Cursing, Abandonment, and Blood
Minor: Death of parent, Kidnapping, Confinement, and Infidelity
azrah786's review against another edition
4.25
**I was provided with an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**
CW: violence, blood, murder, death, abandonment, addiction, emotional abuse, toxic relationship, kidnapping /confinement, infidelity
--
In terms of overall vibes I think this may be my favourite Olivie Blake book to date.
There is just something about supernatural and immortal creature being thrown into the modern day world that I enjoy a lot and there were some great characters in this book and their dynamics with one another were so fun!! I’m not alone in seeing the Good Omens vibes here and I was hooked all the way through, speeding through the book in the space of a weekend.
Down to the bare bones the book is about a bunch of characters who are thrown together to rescue Death but there are also a lot of moving pieces behind the mystery at the heart of the story.
Blake’s storytelling made the world (though it is pretty much just an AU of our world) feel so lived in with these creatures and beings just going about their lives. The writing just makes you feel so deeply for them and their conundrums particularly when it came to relationships, I was very much invested with all of the pairings in this one.
The only real issue that I had were how sometimes the writing style switched up, changing from a more regular third person account to script like dialogue without any warning. I think it disrupted the flow of the story for me and threw me off a little at times especially when these script-esque segments dragged on for a bit too long..
However, I really enjoyed watching the individual arcs of the characters unfold and they all came together in such a satisfying way. All in all a very entertaining read.
Final Rating - 4.25/5 Stars
CW: violence, blood, murder, death, abandonment, addiction, emotional abuse, toxic relationship, kidnapping /confinement, infidelity
--
In terms of overall vibes I think this may be my favourite Olivie Blake book to date.
There is just something about supernatural and immortal creature being thrown into the modern day world that I enjoy a lot and there were some great characters in this book and their dynamics with one another were so fun!! I’m not alone in seeing the Good Omens vibes here and I was hooked all the way through, speeding through the book in the space of a weekend.
Down to the bare bones the book is about a bunch of characters who are thrown together to rescue Death but there are also a lot of moving pieces behind the mystery at the heart of the story.
Blake’s storytelling made the world (though it is pretty much just an AU of our world) feel so lived in with these creatures and beings just going about their lives. The writing just makes you feel so deeply for them and their conundrums particularly when it came to relationships, I was very much invested with all of the pairings in this one.
The only real issue that I had were how sometimes the writing style switched up, changing from a more regular third person account to script like dialogue without any warning. I think it disrupted the flow of the story for me and threw me off a little at times especially when these script-esque segments dragged on for a bit too long..
However, I really enjoyed watching the individual arcs of the characters unfold and they all came together in such a satisfying way. All in all a very entertaining read.
Final Rating - 4.25/5 Stars
Content Warnings
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Addiction, Death, Murder, Violence, Confinement, Blood, Kidnapping, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Infidelity
booksbeyondthebinary's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Toxic relationship and Addiction
Minor: Infidelity and Death of parent
dianaschmidty's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I spent the entire book seesawing between feeling invested and confused. I must have gone back 30 seconds on the audiobook a couple hundred times, because I couldn’t have grasped what was going on without doing that.
Olivie Blake is a great writer, no doubt, but I wish this book had been written a little differently.
At the beginning of the book, we’re dropped into a story that seems like it’ll be narrated by death, which is was for a bit, but it seemed like by halfway through the book, Olivie forgot that Death was even involved. Yeah, I get that he was a little busy during that part of the book, but isn’t he supposed to be basically omniscient?
I loved the romances in the book, but at times, it felt like too many things were happening at once. Like give me two epic love stories or three separately distinguished love stories. Having three love stories all play out at the exact same time (with two of them basically forgotten for like 150 pages until they needed to be tied up in a nice bow at the end) felt like too much to really let me get to know the characters. By the end of the book, I knew Violet, Fox, and Brant, all of which I liked, but I think with as big of a cast of characters as this book had, I needed to know more.
Also, why do we never get to know how what happens to Tom at the end happens? It’s never explained…
I really liked the narrator. He did a great job with all of the different accents. My only issue with the audiobook was that some parts weren’t very conducive to this format. Like whenever the book jumped from past to present or vise versa with little warning, it was jarring.
Overall, I really liked the book, I just think it was an overly complex world at times.
Thank you so much to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Olivie Blake for providing me access to this book.
Olivie Blake is a great writer, no doubt, but I wish this book had been written a little differently.
At the beginning of the book, we’re dropped into a story that seems like it’ll be narrated by death, which is was for a bit, but it seemed like by halfway through the book, Olivie forgot that Death was even involved. Yeah, I get that he was a little busy during that part of the book, but isn’t he supposed to be basically omniscient?
I loved the romances in the book, but at times, it felt like too many things were happening at once. Like give me two epic love stories or three separately distinguished love stories. Having three love stories all play out at the exact same time (with two of them basically forgotten for like 150 pages until they needed to be tied up in a nice bow at the end) felt like too much to really let me get to know the characters. By the end of the book, I knew Violet, Fox, and Brant, all of which I liked, but I think with as big of a cast of characters as this book had, I needed to know more.
Also, why do we never get to know how what happens to Tom at the end happens? It’s never explained…
I really liked the narrator. He did a great job with all of the different accents. My only issue with the audiobook was that some parts weren’t very conducive to this format. Like whenever the book jumped from past to present or vise versa with little warning, it was jarring.
Overall, I really liked the book, I just think it was an overly complex world at times.
Thank you so much to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Olivie Blake for providing me access to this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Classism, Toxic relationship, and Kidnapping
amelianotthepilot's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
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
4.5
The concept of Olivie’s books are so interesting. However this book, although really interesting, lacks something that I cant quite put my finger on.
The plot yet again follows a whole cast of characters with no real main character. Olivie really delves into each character and fully gives them their own stories jumping between their side thoughts and plots and tying them to the main plot. The “main character” is Fox the adopted son/‘godson’ of Death. The other semi main character is Vi, a previous human who is recently turned a vampire and now is a real estate agent currently struggling to sell a house with ghost. After a series of events Vi, Fox, and an assortment of characters make their way to The Game. ‘The Game’ is a gamboling game played amongst immortals and death to risk everything to gain everything.
The Game is where the plot started to fall apart for me. There were a lot of great quotes and thoughts on death and life and mortals vs immortals. But The Game was sorta vaguely described and the stakes not fully explored. It was too vague and too important but resolved quite quickly.
Yet again I find the pacing of olivie’s books a little odd. It jumps quite quickly between conversations and abandons action in favor of slowly drawing other things out. I think they would honestly work better as movies.
The plot yet again follows a whole cast of characters with no real main character. Olivie really delves into each character and fully gives them their own stories jumping between their side thoughts and plots and tying them to the main plot. The “main character” is Fox the adopted son/‘godson’ of Death. The other semi main character is Vi, a previous human who is recently turned a vampire and now is a real estate agent currently struggling to sell a house with ghost. After a series of events Vi, Fox, and an assortment of characters make their way to The Game. ‘The Game’ is a gamboling game played amongst immortals and death to risk everything to gain everything.
The Game is where the plot started to fall apart for me. There were a lot of great quotes and thoughts on death and life and mortals vs immortals. But The Game was sorta vaguely described and the stakes not fully explored. It was too vague and too important but resolved quite quickly.
Yet again I find the pacing of olivie’s books a little odd. It jumps quite quickly between conversations and abandons action in favor of slowly drawing other things out. I think they would honestly work better as movies.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Death, and Murder
thecolouryes's review against another edition
dark
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Cursing
Minor: Death of parent, Infidelity, and Murder
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