Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

39 reviews

mzquirk's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


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zombiezami's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense

4.0


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abookwormspov's review against another edition

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dark emotional lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Look I'm a sucker for a
fated mates
shifter romance. Was it entirely cheesy? Yes. Was it extremely predictable? Yes. Did I enjoy every second of it? Absolutely!

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angel__'s review against another edition

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  • Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

War jetzt kein literarisches Meisterwerk, aber durchaus sehr unterhaltsam mit einem flüssigen Schreibstil, der einen praktisch durch die Seiten fliegen ließ.
Die Protagonistin ist mir manchmal etwas auf die Nerven gegangen, weil sie nicht verstanden hat,
wer die Gefährtin des Alpha ist
und man das als Leser schon von Anfang an wusste, aber da sie nicht sehr viel über
die Werwölfe
wusste, konnte man es ihr sehr lange Zeit verzeihen, nur irgendwann hätte theoretisch auch sie es merken müssen
(jedenfalls früher, als sie es getan hat)
.
Es waren aber auch Plottwists dabei, die nicht unbedingt vorhersehbar waren.
Insgesamt hat es mich ganz gut unterhalten, deswegen ⭐⭐⭐.5

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vixenreader's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • 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

3.25

It’s like if “Underworld” was a Rom-Com, with less leather and more peanut butter. 

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frantically's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Never did I think that Ali Hazelwood would be the one writing the biggest paranormal romance of the year, yet here we are.

This book was so addicting, I muted the football game I was watching and just continued listening to the audio – I couldn't stop.

It's the perfect mix of delicious smut and actual, well thought out world building and plot. 

The Feelings were there from page one and while I usually hate miscommunication, here it was just so adorable and so well done, all I could do was root for Misery and Lo and their HEA. 

Also: Lo Morland is my new book boyfriend

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priyankachatterjee09's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

What is this thing about biting each other when felt like and that could make the pair more romantic? And what is a knot? If the knot really hindered an inter species sex, maybe would have accepted but MATE SEX?!I am never buying that. I hated these two parts.


All points for my girl, Misery. She is confused, she is a nerd, she is a coder and she has a big unyielding heart. Lowe was okay but his alpha nature and his paternal love for his sis was beautiful. However, for me I could not love him as strongly as I loved Levi or Jonathan Turner. Turner was the best nerdy MMC possible.
I love how Ali Hazelwood works on slow burn romance, how she makes a strong nerdy sciency female character. I, being, a microbiologist gets so many nostalgic moments while Ali explains bio. It’s a feast to my eyes. I feel nerdy women in STEM are so powerful a choice to be someone’s main character.
Anyways, Serena is a lovely side character and Alex too. Looking forward to more Koen and Serena stuffs, if the final book really deals about that!

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roorooreads's review

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emotional funny mysterious medium-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

5.0

I adored this! There asa alot less romance then I was expecting from and Ali Hazelwood but I loved the couple just as much. It was a culmination of small sweet moments that really got me. I also loved the mystery the was woven into the story. And the cat, a little sister, and that pack....yep all of it. Highly recommend and there better be a sequel!!!

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kendoftheworld's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted medium-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? Yes

4.0

As an aroace enby who is sometimes sex-repulsed, I always find myself amused and simultaneously horrified when reading extremely cishet romance novels … but maybe not for the expected reasons.

Things I liked: Serena, Sparkles, and Owen. That Owen’s final speech to their father is basically soft-coded for “I plan to not make America great again, I plan to make America comfortably insignificant again,” which, *finger snaps.* That none of the women in this book are in any sort of competition with each other. That platonic same-sex friendship is maybe the only major plot point. (I don’t consider sex a plot point, but that’s me.)

Things I didn’t: Basically, the main Romance (and specifically Omegaverse) Thing™️ where really good sex is a) the whole point of the book, b) fundamentally transformative, c) what every normal person is built for, and d) where all the meaning and belonging of life is stored up for folks to experience. 

As I mentioned, I’m an aroace enby. I will never experience romance or sex the same way as an allosexual, and I have been raised like everyone else to see romance and sex as extremely meaningful—more meaningful than platonic friendship, because the book never climaxes or ends on platonic friendship even if the author considers it important. The book never ends with someone trying to figure out if life is going to ever be as meaningful for them as everyone else, simply because they’re not built to experience love the same way. And in a book where that *exact* question is raised repeatedly, as a result of biological difference, it’s even more heartbreaking for the conclusion to be “I’d totally still love you if you didn’t love me back or experience love the same way—but isn’t it awesome that we do, in the end, feel the same way for each other and were silly silly people for thinking we were biologically incompatible and *didn’t* experience sex in all its mind-blowing fullness in essentially the same way?”

It’d be nice if someone were biologically compelled to really really like me, sexually and/or romantically, because then I could know for sure that life was meaningful and worth continuing for no other reason than that such relationships apparently make us feel it is worth continuing. It’s not Ali Hazelwood’s fault for amplifying this narrative since literally no one else I’ve ever read has managed anything else, but it does feel particularly galling here, perhaps because she *knows* and she wants to *try* at an inclusive romance. And we quite literally pay for romance books to be the way they are.

I’m not saying I hate being me right now, but I do always hate myself at least a little bit for being such a … (I’m laughing at myself here a bit) … misery melon about the whole thing. 

I do dream of a world where a misery melon like me can find a meaningful ending in a romance book that doesn’t involve being transformed by mind-blowing sex, though.

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kyriannaj's review

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

4.5


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