Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Out of the Blue by Jason June

12 reviews

writewithapendragon's review

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted 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

Loved the mermaid lore, characterization, and perfect level of romance for a YA title. Great body rep and queer rep. Highly recommend, can’t wait to read their other books!!!

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Content Warnings

Minor: Grief, Car accident, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Toxic friendship, and Sexual content

mattyb's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Car accident, Cursing, and Sexual content

Minor: Animal cruelty, Mental illness, and Vomit

evelynyle_88's review

adventurous funny 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

5.0

Holy crap!

I never knew I needed a book of merfolk that came out so perfect like this. Out Of The Blue was just a perfect light fantasy with a gentle touch of magic for me. This is perfect for me who love The Little Mermaid in general.

This book has a sweet and cute story (but with some heartfelt moment) that made me; who read it... cry. I just love Sean and Ross (a.k.a Crest). I love them so much equally. They're made for each other. A fantasy dream book of merfolk and brief their history for me.

Oh! And I love Kavya too.. also Elder Kelp! We can't forget about them and their wisefulness. Thank you for bringing this book to life, Jason. I appreciate you. Can't wait to read Jay's Gay Agenda as my other read for your book! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Mental illness, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Cursing, Car accident, and Sexual content

Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Alcohol

rubadubindabathtub's review

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Cursing

Minor: Fatphobia, Mental illness, and Toxic relationship

stormeno's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Dysphoria, Body shaming, and Cursing

bashsbooks's review against another edition

hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.75

Out of the Blue is cute, and I love that one of the main characters is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. But I don't think it successfully pulled off the subversive ending that it was going for, sadly, and I think the reason why pervades the whole book: it gets distracted by being preachy.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Car accident, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Body shaming, Transphobia, Alcohol, and Fatphobia

-Explicit description of drowning -The transphobia is specifically some very brief misgendering

emily_mh's review against another edition

lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.0

I feel cheated by this book. Everything about it was set up like a romcom: the cover, the tropes, the implied retelling of The Little Mermaid, the fact that Sean, one of the MCs, is obsessed with romcoms and points out all the romcom beats in the story… All this for it to end without the most important romcom beat, the Happily Ever After. The characters didn’t even get a Happy For Now. It was like a slap in the face, and aside from being a tonal shift the ending didn’t make sense for other reasons, too.

For example, the narrative is truly focussed on Crest and Sean’s relationship. Any character development is to the level you would expect in a romcom, NOT in a coming-of-age story where the relationship is there for formative purposes, which is what the ending turns the story into. So the ending feels jarring as it depends on having major character development in both MCs, which wasn’t the case. Ironically, the ending is the reason why Crest CAN’T have any major character development, because it depends on their views on humans and the Blue remaining the exact same. I was hoping at least for them to learn that there is a lot of nuance regarding humans and the environment given power systems like capitalism and white supremacy. I was also hoping they might seek to change the parameters of the Journey, because its conditions are unfair and don’t allow meaningful connections between human and mer to form. But Crest just returns to the sea, holding much the same beliefs, only thinking that they might try to spread love for humans among mer, which seems a bit of a weak resolution.

As you can tell it seems I didn’t like Crest in the end, but in fact I didn’t like them most of the book. They didn’t really try to give humans and life on land a chance because of their uninformed view of humanity. I also hated how hot and cold they were with Sean, getting so angry with him out of nowhere and not allowing Sean to explain. And then they really cheapened their connection with Sean when after one little misunderstanding (again, not allowing Sean to explain), they cheated on him.

The only reason this isn’t getting a one star is that there were some redeeming qualities. I was enjoying it in the beginning, I liked Sean as a character, and the worldbuilding surrounding the mer was interesting (despite the literal infodump in the middle).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity

Moderate: Sexual content, Vomit, and Cursing

Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Gun violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Transphobia, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, War, Body shaming, Classism, Animal death, Ableism, Confinement, Fatphobia, Mental illness, and Physical abuse

Minor: earthquake, divorce

asparagusisreading's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.75

Rep: nonbinary character, gay character, bisexual indian character, bisexual latinx character

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Cursing, and Mental illness

Moderate: Car accident, Body shaming, and Sexual content

fanboyriot's review

emotional funny fast-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

3.5

A non-binary MC that just so happens to be mer??  Sign me up.  I really liked so much about this book even if I have somewhat mixed feelings about how it ended.  I easily fell in love with the characters, the humor, and all the merfolk stuff.  It was really cute.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness

Moderate: Cursing, Sexual content, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, and Car accident

Minor: Fatphobia, Body shaming, and Alcohol

offbrandclubsoda's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual content, Car accident, and Cursing

Minor: Mental illness and Transphobia