Reviews with content warning for Gore - The Dead Cat Tail Assassins

Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

6 reviews

carlyguari's review

adventurous dark funny fast-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? No

4.25

That was just a lot of fun 😄

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for a digital advanced copy of this e-book in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this quick little novella. It was fast paced, a little self aware, and funny! It could be due to recency bias but the book gave me Hazbin Hotel vibes. Mostly in the way the characters act, talk, and react to each other. I also enjoyed reading a Black/POC Fantasy book. Being a cis female white reader, I appreciate expanding my consumption to voices and experiences that are not like my own and challenging my assumed cis/whiteness bias. I am really interested in reading more P. Djeli Clark!

My copy did have some typos and weird sentence structure which may be due to the fact is was an ARC.

Who its for?: fantasy readers, fast-paced action, get out of a reading slump, not so hard to think about

Who is it not for?: People who want more complex/epic fantasy, People who think to hard when they read (that can be me sometimes!), people who don't like a little bit of gore.

Content Warnings

julalbert56's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

This was a fun and mysterious adventure story with tons of cool fights and epic characters! For being a novella it accomplishes a lot in very few pages. I wish the lore of the world tied more directly into the revelation/climax of what was going on in the central narrative. The Pirate Princess stories were interesting but ultimately weren’t very relevant. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this story!

Content Warnings

paracosim's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny 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

4.25

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
So, this is a book I was super excited for. I heard of it on a podcast some months ago, where one of the hosts was discussing ARCs she’d recently read, and this novella came up. And boy, did she wax poetic about it. I wasn’t expecting to see the ARC still available, and really wasn’t expecting to get access within hours of requesting. I was intent on finding out whether it was worth the hype and read it pretty much immediately.
The hype is deserved. I’ll start by saying that. The writing is easy to follow, though there are quite a few grammatical errors. I assume these will be edited out before the official release and thus aren’t an issue. The only problem I had, which took away from the book in my opinion, was

the chapter near the end in which the g-ddesses were speaking. I absolutely could not understand what they were supposed to be saying. I caught some of it, through multiple rereads, but it took me out of the story big time. I spent more time decoding the speech than I did actually reading.

For this alone, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins gets only 4.25 stars.
On the bright side, the characters were easy to love and root for, and the worldbuilding was top notch. I would love to read more stories set in this world; I was actually kind of depressed when I realized it was over. So P. Djèlí Clark, if you’re reading this, please for the love of g-d write more novellas set in this city. It would be glorious.
I will definitely be buying a physical copy when the novella releases, and I recommend that you do too.

Content Warnings

holleranaboutbooks's review

Go to review page

adventurous funny mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

This book was a nonstop thrill ride from start to finish, and I can't stop thinking about it!

If you like books about assassins with immersive world building that unfolds around you as you read, with epic fight scenes, terrifying goddesses of death, a funny main character, and so many plot twists, make this your next fantasy read.

Eveen is an undead assassin with no memories of her life before, contracted to serve her goddess of death for eternity. Until one day, she's hired to kill someone who she can't kill.

Forced to go on the run and search for answers, while fighting off other assassins, this book is action packed and filled with mystery and intrigue.

Content Warnings

leahjanespeare's review

Go to review page

adventurous medium-paced

4.0

What a wacky, bloody adventure! Love the sly humor and near-absurdity of the...tail. I hope to see more from this world in the future.

Content Warnings

mals_reads's review

Go to review page

dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

this was a fast-paced, tense assassin story with an intriguing twist. it wasn’t necessarily challenging or difficult — i dont think it was meant to be — but i really enjoyed the characters, particularly the goddesses.

pacing was a little uneven to me — the ending was wrapped up pretty quickly compared to the journey which, for me, wasn’t my cup of tea.

all in all a pretty straightforward read with a lot of interesting characters that i wish we could have learned more about! definitely a world that could be revisited imo

Content Warnings

More...