Reviews with content warning for Outing - A Strange and Stubborn Endurance

I thoroughly enjoyed this! There was no lack of interest whenever I picked it up. I do have so gripes about the world building, more specifically the magic system (though this could just be attributed to my lack of understanding and not a lack of explanation). The characters felt lively and the romance felt genuine.

I don't know if I'll continue this series, but not for a lack of enjoyment. It felt like a satisfying enough ending with just enough ambiguity and loose-ends to justify a sequel, but not so much that I'm rushing to read it.

If you pick this up please heed the trigger warnings!

Content Warnings

voidature's review

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emotional

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

r_a_bell's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

isxelle's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

3.25

3-3.4
i forgot to make this review so i can't remember my exact rating.

cute romance combined with healing from trauma and an intriguing political murder mystery. i'm grateful for a book club i’m in for making me pick this one up. i probably wouldn’t have otherwise because i don’t usually gravitate towards books with heavier traumatic topics. TW for sexual assault in ch 2. as a result of this life changing event, we follow vel on his road of healing and recovery. cae is such a perfect man. he’s so whipped for vel and i was living for it.

However, with all these different elements i feel that the overall story ended up lacking in some aspects. there’s a whole other 2 countries on this map that barely get mentioned. off the top of my head, i can’t name a single thing about them and that is if they were even mentioned in this book at all.

another aspect of this world is magic. it turned out to be quite an important detail in this book and i feel like we were told rather little about it. i’m surprised that there aren’t any defenses against magic users. it’s against the law to use magic on others without their consent but that’s that. that’s literally it. there’s no defences or anything talked about in this

it’s kind of surprising that the events of this book took place during a little over a week. the escalation was crazy.

i honestly had kind of bad vibes from laecia in the beginning with the way she was saying she’d whip the ralian bruteness out of him. i suppose with ralia’s reputation that was to be expected, but i can’t believe she devolved into madness that fast. maybe she was always like that and had never grown up? cae had mentioned her saying “she deserved it”
in reference to a kid she had got in a fight with and then many years later saying the same thing when killing a groom. she was always getting people to do her dirty work. ALSO what the hell happened to her magical exhaustion. does she just have crazy stamina???? that anad guy said she seemed tired but then a couple hours later she was crushing hearts and frying more nerves. i definitely have a lot of questions.

this part is just be me having a personal ick, but vel is the kind of person who cannot accept a compliment and it pissed me the fuck off at some points. he is so self-deprecating and it was annoying me. yknow those types of people who are like haha i fucking suck lmao. ya that is him.

i liked the beginning and middle more that the last like 100 pages.

Content Warnings

readingbee416's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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

3.0

This book was a wild ride. I enjoyed it overall and Caethari is a wonderful cinnamon roll character that deserves the whole world (and Markel, too), but MIND THE TRIGGERS. This book has some very dark bits and the author makes some interesting choices.

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purplepenning's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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s_l's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious sad slow-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

3.5

The book was nice, but sort of naive in the way Tithenai society and Cae are so perfect for Vel and Markel, which I know some people would want and need to read about, that in the end it was boring for me
But other than that it was good

Content Warnings

sissizc's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-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

2.0

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