Reviews with content warning for Rape - Thirteen

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh

24 reviews

kristinebennett's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.25

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martin27's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.75

To be honest I don’t know what made me pick up this one. It’s not what I normally read. I prefer character driven stories, usually. This is… not that. But more than just being plot-driven, the characters are all very bland. They’re basically indistinguishable from one another. They all speak the same way and do the same things. By far the characters I liked the most were Harper and Delaney, but not for anything unique or interesting they did as much as having literally even one defining characteristic to set them apart from the other characters (that trait is that they’re women, by the way. That’s the only thing that makes them different from everyone else in any way.).

There were a few good twists, the actual mystery element was fine. The pacing is… odd. The whole book takes place during one week, but it really doesn’t feel that way when reading. The first half especially dragged, but it picked up after that.

If you like crime dramas, you’ll probably get more out of this than I did. I can’t fault it for being a genre I just generally don’t care for. But I do wish that the characters had been a bit more defined and that the pacing made more sense. It also alternates between first and third person pov, which was… not my favorite choice. Eddie’s perspective is so bland that writing it in first person doesn’t add anything to the story, and Kane’s isn’t special enough to warrant a change in the pov.

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saraavowlerr's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.5

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that_bookworm_guy's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I didn't realise this was book 4, but honestly, it didn't seem to matter too much. I picked up the character fairly quickly and it made me want to read the previous books.

I enjoyed this story, I've never read a book like this. The murderer in on the Jury which sounds like you know who they are and what they do, but it does take a while for the story to unwrap completely, keeping you gripped.

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nelemariek's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

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

2.5

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ladysmartypants's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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elviolet's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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charskindle's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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_terah_hansen_'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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lostcupofstars's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

This was good and had the potential to be a really excellent read. I don’t normally read crime fiction but this came highly recommended. The plot was really well thought out - even while knowing that the killer is on the jury, there are still a number of things that keep you on your toes.
Where it let itself down was the character development. I know that this is #4 in a series of books about this same lawyer, but they can also be read a stand-alone books. I think there are way too many characters, very few of which are developed and this means that some of the parts that are supposed to be shocking don’t land the way they should. I found myself having to flick back to figure out who the reveal character was and what I had missed.
The action scenes were also really hard to follow, a little bit too much was left to the imagination and I had to keep rereading paragraphs to understand what had happened.
THAT being said, I did enjoy reading this. The things I listed stopped it from being a 5 star read, but once I hit the 60% point I had to finish it and stayed up til 3am to do so.

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