Scan barcode
queerloras's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
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? Yes
3.25
Can definitely tell its the first book in the series as author is still finding her stride.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Abandonment, Alcohol, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Violence, Body horror, Death, Murder, Stalking, Medical content, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Blood, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, Torture, and Trafficking
katbenimble's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.25
I do not even know where to begin with this 😂 it was so bad. The plot holes are big enough for Tricksy to ride through. The graphic violence was almost too much for me. The MCs are both idiots. The spice started like...75% through the book. The end.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Animal death, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Murder, Torture, Stalking, Medical content, Gore, Death, and Body horror
Moderate: Sexual content
sarrie's review against another edition
dark
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Pestilence by Laura Thalassa is everywhere if you spend a lot of time on the Fantasy Romance part of the bookish internet - or it was at one point and now it has just seeped into the collective consciousness there. It’s getting it’s traditional release this year and I grabbed a copy to try out (both an eArc and the physical edition at my local Barnes & Noble). And I can’t quite get my head around it.
The premise is simple enough. The four Horseman arrived on Earth some years ago, announcing our demise, then disappeared. The first of the Horseman has awoken, and it’s Pestilence who is slowly riding around the world and sickening and destroying the populace. Sara Burns (a hilarious name considering she’s a firefighter) takes it upon herself to attempt to kill Pestilence. Then ends up paying the price.
So here is where my first BIG problem with this comes. Sara does indeed manage to kill him, burns him to death in fact and when he gets back up (he’s a Horseman of the Apocalypse, of course you can’t kill him) he’s very angry. In an interesting twist, he can feel all the pain and agony of death and all that it does to his body but he never truly dies. So he decides to keep her captive and punish her. From there he does many things to her. Shoots her, drags her by the wrists behind his horse, verbally abuses her, etc. As this is a romance eventually he comes around and she ‘brings out his humanity and gives him hope’ - the usual. But the things he does prior to this, it’s a LOT.
There is also the weirdly added chunk of travel in which Sara constantly tends to those who are dying from his plague he spreads just by being somewhere. We read about these people dying, including small children, and his simple refusal to do anything. If the ultimate end game was for us to like Pestilence it didn’t happen for me. The man or whatever he is because at one point he tells her he’s is just what his name says - a walking cloud of disease? Is simply not appealing. It missed me. No thank you.
And yet I finished it. I cannot tell you why. I don’t think I recommend this one, but the writing just kept me going and I am just so convinced there has to be something more in the later books. I want the twist to be that these men are not what they seem. Or they are but in a way that makes sense for them to feel the pain they do?
I genuinely don’t know who I’d recommend this too. It’s not romantic, it’s sad then funny then so melodramatic. It has the Happily Ever After all romances do. She ends up sleeping with the personification of a cloud of disease and it’s implied they have children by the end when War appears - but I also can’t tell you I’m not going to read the next one.
If you do pick it up… just don’t think to hard about it. Like the boils his plague leaves behind it’s peppered with red flags and holes but it was fun and bingeable.
2 warm baths with a disease cloud watching you (and yes. that line felt like kink shaming in the book)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Child death, Murder, and Gore
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Bullying, and Kidnapping
Minor: Stalking
More...