Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Bride

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

42 reviews

kreglow's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny hopeful lighthearted 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

It's pretty good. The main character is humorous, and the dynamic between her and the love interest is refreshing, with consent being a huge aspect of their burgeoning relationship. Tropey, but a fun read that doesn't take itself too seriously. A LOT of sex, so if that's not your thing, it might be better to skip it. Heads up: it's very heavy with Omegaverse tropes and is VERY graphic with the sexual aspects of the dynamic.

Content Warnings

mels_reading_log's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

Ali Hazelwood is one of my must read authors, so I don’t know why I was nervous about reading a fantasy book by her. This marriage of convenience book where a vampire and a werewolf alpha get married for species relations was sooo passionate and witty and swoon worthy. I love a big strong MMC who falls in love first, loves his family and is just such a lovey dovey guy behind closed doors. I especially love how Lowe shows Misery that she is worth people caring about her.

Content Warnings

jcreads85's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny 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? It's complicated

4.25

Content Warnings

bethanystone13's review

Go to review page

hopeful 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? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

emilywemily6's review

Go to review page

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? No

4.0

This book was an entertaining intro to the omegaverse! The politics and backstory of the vampires vs weres vs humans was really interesting, and I loved seeing Misery come to love the werewolves and their culture. I wish some concepts had been explained a little more. I enjoyed these characters but they didn’t have a lot of depth. While I liked the romance for the first 3/4 of the book, I really hated the relationship dynamic toward the end and how Lore lied and gaslit Misery once their relationship progressed 🙄 obviously that resolved but I just didn’t like how the relationship evolved overall when things got sexual, or how easy it was for her to forgive him, or how clueless he was about his poor decision. Overall, this was a fun read, but I feel like there is more that could have made this a really great book in this paranormal romance category.

Content Warnings

ehwhateverest's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced

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

5.0

I had so much fun with this book. As someone who read a lot of fan fiction in high school, this book was a kind of freak that deeply appealed to me. Misery might be one of my favorite characters in any romance ever. I urge you to read this book but proceed with caution if you weren’t raised on AO3

Content Warnings

mal_eficent's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny fast-paced

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

4.0

My 'issue' with Hazelwood's stories is that they're all very much structured like fanfiction. I love fanfic, that's not the problem, but fanfic has different structures and expectations than normal fiction and it's really hard to review or explain why this works really well if you don't have a background reading fanfic.

I totally get why people don't get along with her style: fanfic skips a lot of world building and character motivation because you're expected to have an idea of how characters are related to each other thanks to the original media, and the world building is just set dressing to exploring how characters interact. Bride pretty much follows that trend completely – the world feels like it works and exists, but big chunks of description and exposition are skipped. It's bingeable, with a lot of character reflection, and that's even more present in Bride because of how isolated Misery often is. (I'm also just going to assume this is Reylo again because I think the only non-Reylo pairing Hazelwood has written is Stuck with You)

I will say Bride has a lot more connecting scenes than The Love Hypothesis did, which is definitely a move away from fanfic styles, and that makes it a more much traditional read. (Fanfic doesn't care about what's happening 'in the background', sometimes, because again, the readers are here for the characters and typically there's an emphasis on character interactions.)

If you like fanfiction, and you like Ali Hazelwood, there's a non-zero chance of you enjoying this. If you're not up for a slightly more loosey goosey, race to the finish line kind of romance and intrigue plot that hand waves a lot of the actual work in favour of characters chatting...You might not enjoy this.

Content Warnings

seapotatohowisitalrtaken's review

Go to review page

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

2.75

Content Warnings

unicornofthesea's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? No

5.0

Content Warnings

goldenleafbooks's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-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? No

5.0

I could not put this book down. I absolutely adored the characters. Misery being naive to Lowe's feelings was truly believable, which is something that I feel like a lot of authors struggle to pull off.

Content Warnings

More...