Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Pestilence by Laura Thalassa

16 reviews

booksalacarte's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

2.5

2.5⭐️ 3🌶️ (spice)

I don’t know what I was expecting from this book. Spicy Booktok raved about it and I suggested it to my best friend, kelly as a buddy read, almost as a joke because it looked super steamy. 

Pestilence was a slow burn romance and had more religious content than I was expecting, even though it’s literally based on the Bible’s four horsemen of the Apocalypse. I found the spiritual parts to be very sweet and inspiring, even though I was caught off guard seeing them in this very solidly categorized romance novel. 

The plot was difficult mainly because this was a 100% character driven story. There is a lot going on with the MC’s, but they aren’t doing too much. The traveling and troubles they run into get a little repetitive. But I understand the nature of why it had to be that way. 

The end was a little dissatisfying, with a time jump before a cliffhanger that didn’t give a clue to what the next book would entail. So the series overarching plot is a little ambiguous. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Kidnapping, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Gun violence, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Alcohol, Torture, Cursing, Vomit, and Confinement

ollie_again's review against another edition

I gave this a fair shot, but holy hell was this bad. Before picking this book up I had it in my head that it might be too dark for me, but that I've seen it recommended so much it has to have a good romance. Nope on both things. 

How do you take the concept of romancing the Horsemen of the Apocalypse & manage it to be extremely boring and flat at the same time? The MC keeps hamming on that Pestilence is beautiful, sexy and handsome from the very beginning, even in between him torturing her, killing people left and right and generally being the undesirable number one?

There is no gradual development of their relationship. We are meant to feel something for Pestilence as he starts thinking differently about the world, but... yikes. I did not feel any chemistry at all, there is nothing sexy in this book to be found, and when you pile that on the fact that people are dying from plague yet they get kissy-kissy in the next room, I wanna vom.

And to the darkness of the book... yes, the general idea and the things that happen are dark in theory, but the way they are portrayed and relayed left me feeling nothing. When neither the *dark* nor the *romance* in the equation can squeeze some emotion out of me, it's a pretty bad package.

Unfortunately, another overhyped romance off my TBR.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Torture, Terminal illness, Fire/Fire injury, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Violence and Child death

Minor: Vomit, War, and Rape

kinsportch's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Gun violence, Violence, Torture, Terminal illness, Murder, Kidnapping, Blood, Genocide, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Vomit and Rape

cluckieduck's review

challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.0

An interesting premise, but I found most of it to just be sorta…meh. The world building, the writing, the “romance” - it just lacked the substance that allows me to fully invest in what I’m reading, though I did think Pestilence was an intriguing lead. I found myself wondering, like Sara did, how can one fall for him? Is it his naivety? He did make quite a funny nursemaid. 

The sex scenes were rough (and not in a good way) - poor Sara’s vag deserves a break from all the furious pounding. Much like the rest of the story, it’s overly repetitive and not written well. A very underwhelming read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Cursing, Kidnapping, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Vomit, Sexual content, and Torture

Minor: Rape

books_bunny's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

This book surprised me, whilst I went in relatively blind and expecting an average read I found myself really enjoying this book. Some of the themes were a lot darker than I expected and, whilst I really enjoyed how the author wrote them, I can see why some people would not. If you are sensitive to certain themes I would recommend checking the content warnings beforehand.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Genocide, Gun violence, Murder, Terminal illness, Violence, Sexual content, and Torture

Moderate: Child death, Toxic relationship, Grief, Kidnapping, Animal cruelty, and Blood

Minor: Confinement, Vomit, and Medical content

deerestdoe's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Can be fun, as long as you can ignore how ridiculous it is. Reading it in the middle of a pandemic feels kind of surreal.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Physical abuse, and Terminal illness

Minor: Blood, Child death, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Toxic relationship, and Vomit