Reviews with content warning for Death - Voyage of the Damned

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White

28 reviews

kpturner90's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted 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

Weird and different in the best way! This book was highly creative and SO MUCH fun while keeping me guessing to the end. At one point, I thought I'd figured out the killer, only to be proven so very wrong. Dee is the kind of character that you feel a deep, personal connection with, almost like he's your real-life best friend. His sincerity and I-don't-give-a-damn attitude make you want someone like him in your life. I can't wait to see what Frances White comes up with next!

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julalbert56's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious 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

3.0

I am so conflicted about this book. On one hand, the characters (especially grasshopper) were so fun to follow and the mystery had me hooked. On the other hand, I was really not vibing with the worldbuilding or the main romance.

Why is Cordelia described as conventionally attractive? Shouldn’t the Dragon blessed be the “pinacle” of beauty? It also rubbed me the wrong way how Dee fell in love with Wyatt literally days after the “love of his life” was murdered. I know the author tried to reason that away with the Ravi shapeshifting twist but it still didn’t sit right with me. I also didn’t love Ravi as a character, the soft, kindhearted version of him from Dee’s childhood just felt so disconnected to the person who could murder/be complicit in the murder of innocents. I’m glad he ultimately gave the power to Dee or I would have really disliked him.

The writing, though entertaining, also took some getting used to with the amount of curse words/sex jokes. I’m not prudish but I have a limit lol. But anyway, despite those issues the book wasn’t boring, and there was a lot of well implemented diversity which I appreciated.

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shesreadingagain_'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

I really enjoyed this read. I did not expect to love it as much as I did. This book gave me such a warm feeling while also keeping me guessing the entire time who the murderer was.

The ending was a massive surprise to me. I did not see that coming at all.

I cannot recommend this enough.

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bookishde's review against another edition

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funny mysterious tense 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

3.5

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styxx's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging lighthearted 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

4.0

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inkysplodge's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging 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

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hailstorm3812's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

This book is so bonkers. It feels like a rollercoaster but has the same amount of fun. I really liked Dee. He's such a fun protagonist and I liked living in his head. The side characters were all really interesting. It's overwhelming in the beginning but as it goes on a lot of them get a chance to shine. I do have problems with the "and then there were none" style mysteries when all the characters I like start dropping like flies.

This book also gives rights to the homoerotic childhood friendship which I can never condone but I think they pulled it out in the end.

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whiteraven191's review against another edition

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1.0

I so so wanted to like this. But it's just...not very good. For one thing, this is marked as adult (and priced as such) but it very much reads YA. Most of these characters are in their 20s but they don't feel that much more mature than the 14-year-old. The main character's internal narration in particular can be gratingly juvenile. I think the worst example is when someone's been killed and another character is disguising himself as the victim. Dee sees him stripping the clothes off the body and makes a joke about not wanting a threesome. While they stand over the still-warm body Dee's boyfriend just killed. Who had been trying to kill Dee right before that. Also, a threesome in that situation would be necrophilia, but hurr durr someone is having their clothes removed so we need to throw in a sex joke I guess.

The other glaring problem is the world-building. This is a murder mystery, but the lynchpin of the mystery is the magic system. And the magic system is a very soft magic system. Each of the characters has a unique magic power, but there don't seem to be any rules for how powerful those Blessings are or what they can be. This means that the reader can't solve the murder mystery on their own because we don't have all the pieces. Funnily enough, neither does the protagonist. He just kind of stumbles around blindly talking about how he wants to solve the murders but doesn't actually manage to save anyone. He has to be told what's happening.

That's not the only problem with the world-building. The kingdom is split into 12 regions that each have their own gimmick. This means we have a ton of characters to keep track of so they all end up with one personality trait and don't ever show more depth than that. The regions themselves also don't make sense. Most of them flow naturally into each other on the map, but the Siberia region is right next to the Texas region with no geographical barriers or anything to explain the wildly different biomes. It's like the author wanted to write someone with a stereotypical Russian accent so she just crowbarred a Siberia into the map with no care for logic.

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amy14's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring 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? No

5.0

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quitegood's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

4.0

I think it pays to always read the acknowledgements for a book before you pass judgement. To understand why the author wrote the book. This book was a wonderful debut novel and I'm glad I read it. Dee and Grasshopper are so adorable and have stolen my heart. Dee is a little bit of gary stu at times, but also saw a lot of myself in him.... hmm. Always, well worth a read!

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