Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

The Diviners by Libba Bray

16 reviews

hardbackhoarder's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Racism, Gore, Body horror, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Blood, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Child death, Toxic relationship, Suicide, and Murder

Moderate: Slavery, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Ableism, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Drug abuse, Terminal illness, Abortion, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Vomit, Confinement, Deportation, Xenophobia, Colonisation, Rape, Cannibalism, and Homophobia

annakh16's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

A fun book that I got through surprisingly quickly. Great audio narration and great storytelling.  

I really appreciated the diversity of settings and characters, and learning about their struggles. It greatly strengthened  the historical element of the story for me. 

The characters themselves were lovable - well, mostly. Evie had me po-si-tutely annoyed sometimes, but she grew on me, and I also think her behaviour is actually realistic for a teenager in her position, which was refreshing. (But yes: too much slang. I agree with everyone on this). 
I also absolutely loved the different friend/sibling/family dynamics. Theta/Henry and Memphis/Isaiah have my heart.

I do think it was a shame that Mable was kind of dropped 3/4 through the story. It didn’t make sense, and I also just liked following her pov. Hope this gets remedied in the next book.

 

Regarding the ending,

I did think the final fight was surprisingly quick. It felt a bit anticlimactic.

Regarding the romance,

is it really meant to be romance? I think it’s very clear Jericho likes Evie. I think it’s also clear she just sees him as a distraction, with a bit of shared scary experiences/teenage horniness to sort the sexual tension. Will be interesting to see how this develops. Definitely think we have a love triangle incoming.

 

Overall a fun read. Almost too spooky for me. But looking forward to the next book. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Animal cruelty, Sexual assault, Suicide, Animal death, Grief, War, Abortion, and Racism

jollybookshelf's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty

Moderate: Racism

czarina_misha's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.75

Several 17 year-olds with special powers (healing, prophesy, dream walking, etc) meet and become friends in 1930s Manhattan. Their powers are the only thing to stop a supernatural serial killer. Some of their powers. Bray introduces a lot of characters and back stories and incidentals which I assume will be relevant to other books in this series. But she bored and frustrated me so much with all of these extras that I doubt I’ll read the rest. A really good editor should have helped her pare down to maintain flow. Example: In the last fourth of the book a character named Jericho finally shares his great secret, how he was part of an impossible medical experiment. (This is not a spoiler. His secret is obvious to readers tho not other characters.) The revelation is just a few pages. The rest of that rather long chapter Jericho talks about another patient who ultimately died. It’s not relevant to the plot and only a bit to Jericho’s character. Mostly it just added unnecessary words to a book that’s almost 500 pages. I just can’t recommend it. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty

trippalli's review against another edition

dark funny lighthearted mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

A funny adventurous book about a murderous ghost set in a roaring 20s plus occult and individuals with specific powers, like seeing memories in touching an object or seeing glimpses of the future, becoming unseen temporarily... But I never thought I'd let l laugh so much while a serial killer is trying to be stopped. I loved all the very diverse cast and I wanted them to all be safe! They are so quirky, using their ability to pick pockets or make party games and sprinkled constantly with the 20s slang of the lead character, a girl who wants to party and turns detective and PR for her academic uncle's museum of the occult she is so sassy, spontaneous and friendly... All the characters are very vivid and unique and the world is fabulous. I have the first 4 books and am eager to read the next one!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Murder, Physical abuse, Stalking, Torture, Abandonment, Animal death, Death, Alcohol, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Animal cruelty, Racism, Child death, Confinement, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Ableism and War

pagesofash's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Murder

Moderate: Racism

danielle2121's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-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

2.75

*2.75 STARS*

Okay first of all, I loooove the idea of this plot! Do I think it was pulled off in the best way possible? Unfortunately not…

The first 300 pages were so unbelievably slow and some chapters just completely unnecessary and yet after all that, somehow I still don’t feel like the characters were fleshed out or interesting enough even after hearing chapter after chapter about them.
I loved Evie, Theta and Henry though, I truly feel like I knew them by the end of the book. Everyone else fell a little flat for me, especially Memphis and Mabel’s characters (although I love Jericho’s back story, that was very interesting) 

Some parts were creepy which I loved but just not creepy enough! (The whistling will haunt me..) I’d love to have seen more creepiness instead of many chapters about Evie going to speakeasies or talking about clothes… I understand the author needing to emphasise this was set in the 1920’s but I can set the scene myself…

I felt a little lost in places, the plot wasn’t super easy to follow for me sometimes, maybe due to the fact I didn’t care enough for the characters that were in the scenes.
The ending was well wrapped up though, with just the perfect amount of questions remaining about what might come next.
Unfortunately I don’t think I will be continuing with the series though.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Gore

Moderate: Domestic abuse

comraderowan94's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism and Racism

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Animal cruelty

mmikadze's review against another edition

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Murder, Racism, and Abortion

davidrb's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny slow-paced

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

3.0

Just Okay. I think I'm just never gonna get into a YA fantasy, but the setting and lore both appealed to me! I'll probably continue the series, seeing as some characters (namely Memphis, Henry, and Sam!?) didn't have much of a presence in the story when it came to the main plot. (Poor Mabesie too!)

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and War

This book is much more graphic than I was expecting, especially when it comes to the child death, sexual and domestic abuse, and animal death. Watch out!