Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

The Awakening by Susanne Valenti, Caroline Peckham

54 reviews

lifeonasofa'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? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

The Awakening Zodiac Academy ♍️ Review 

“Tears never did anyone any favours, but sometimes they just needed to fall” 😭 - Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti 

⭐️⭐️💫 2.75 Stars

It only took me 2 weeks, but I got there. Shout out to @buddy for keeping me going. The hype surrounding this series is pretty intense and I didn’t realise quite how many HUGE books there were already! The first book was sat on my kindle for a while so I thought why not. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

First of all, I know I went in blind but I heard NOTHING about the sheer amount of bullying in this book. Wow. The WHOLE plot…bullying. I’ll be honest, a good 65% of this book was slow and painful. Very little happened, also everyone is so GROSS. 🙈

I was/still am intrigued by the school, the world and everything the Vega twins have yet to explore. The whole zodiac thing was pretty cool, but we really didn’t get a whole lot of info tbh. I have more questions than answers. 🤔 

I like the twins, they both have likeable personalities, lots of strength. They both however, lost themselves around boys. Said boys (and teachers) are so awful they don’t deserve a paragraph, they will never redeem themselves. 👎🏻

The last 35% was full of friendship, lust and action which I actually read in one sitting. So I don’t know what the authors were playing at with the first 300 pages! The ending made me so uncomfortable, but I’ll hand it to them…I’m intrigued. Darn it! 🙃

Overall, I do not understand the hype. But I do want to read book 2. Please check TWs before reading as this whole bullying thing seems wildly unnecessary to me. 👀

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Bullying, Gaslighting, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Blood, Car accident, Cursing, Gore, Grief, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Death, Abandonment, and Alcohol

bblanka's review

adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Cursing, Murder, and Bullying

silverrae's review against another edition

4.0

After accepting the egregious amount of run on sentences, out of place British spelling, and the occasional typo, it turned out to be an entertaining read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Cursing, Abandonment, Sexual content, Car accident, Alcohol, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Death, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Infidelity, and Murder

lestie4short's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Child death, Death, Sexual content, Alcohol, Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Hate crime, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Car accident, and Death of parent

Minor: Infidelity, Vomit, War, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Torture

zabeishumanish's review

adventurous dark 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

4.5

I totally understand why this series is so popular. Tory and Darcy are super compelling characters and the world-building here is insanely complex yet still comprehensible.  Bully romances are really not my thing and all of the magical aspects incorporated into the bullying made the story a bit too intense for my taste.  If you're a fan of bully romance though this probably won't bother you. 

The story isn't a romance, despite romantic elements (bully romance specifically), the book ends on a cliffhanger with no happy relationships in the book.

There are a ton of consent issues in this book. While none of those issues are around sex, the twins have no bodily autonomy whenever a vampire decides to feed on them and no mental autonomy in terms of the coercion magic, and emotional manipulation from the sirens.  These consent issues being brushed off as part of the fae power structure makes sense in the world-building but has the potential to be more triggering than direct violation of sexual consent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Gore, Violence, Death, Death of parent, Alcohol, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Cursing, Body horror, and Bullying

arys_library's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I really really loved this book! A great introduction to this giant series. I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews on it and I agree with a small part of all of them. 

Someone said the first book is like a really long first chapter of a book. And while I agree, it’s a damn good first chapter. It’s an introduction to this fantasy world, but was so easy to understand, there was very little info dumping. 

I absolutely loved how all of the characters were built and their development. Their personalities, even the bad annoying characters, were so prominent it made the book so lovable and entertaining. Certain times when a character would appear I would get so excited to read their parts, no matter how small. And for a book that is mainly an introduction have that much character impact shows how great the character building and storytelling is. 

I will say I wish there was more internal turmoil between the two main characters Tori and Darcy. Their whole lives have been turned upside down and everything they’ve ever known is taken from them. And we don’t get to see much into their minds on how they are processing so much new information. It really lacked depth in that area. It was like after something incredibly strange happened, the girls thought about how weird and crazy this event was, and then just went along with it 2 minutes later. 

I loved the double povs between the twin mcs. But it would sometimes be confusing. I got a good grasp around 3/4 of the way into the book but before that I was having trouble deciphering between the two. There were many times where I was questioning which girl lived where, who has which power, etc. 

Also super random but the artwork on the beginning of each chapter was so beautiful but there were times where it wood cover up the words and I couldn’t understand what was happening. It didn’t happen every chapter but it happened enough for me to be annoyed by. 

Overall I really enjoyed this book, I’m so excited for the rest of the series so I could see more of each of the characters!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse and Bullying

Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Death of parent, Alcohol, Car accident, Cursing, Sexual content, Animal death, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Minor: Child death, Murder, Infidelity, and Injury/Injury detail

solinel7's review

challenging 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

3.5🌟
Because the magic system is so cool and I can't wait to find out more. 
Loving the twins (I wanna know why people hate them).
Hating the Heirs (I wanna know why people like them).
The Heirs have to have some redeeming qualities but so far I see nothing. 
How do you fall in love with your bully?
I'm thinking of getting to book3 and then go back and read the guys' POV books.

Check for Trigger Warnings/Content ⚠️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Bullying, Cursing, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Death of parent and Car accident

moiranetty's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Honestly didn’t like the first half of the book, the writing felt a bit clunky. The story started to pick up in the second half it felt like it picked up. I like maybe 3 characters in this book, the rest are just stupid assholes. Something that confused me was the twins are supposed to be from Chicago but use British terms?

“my uniform or sports kit”
“Darius to be slating her behind her back”
“put on some thongs, my feet aching too much to bear being confined to any shoes.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Classism, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Alcohol, and Emotional abuse

hiddeninfantasy's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-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? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Infidelity, Sexual harassment, Violence, Body horror, Blood, Bullying, Cursing, Death of parent, Gore, Murder, Vomit, Abandonment, Alcohol, Car accident, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content

alexleigh20's review

challenging dark 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? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Bullying, Death, Death of parent, Torture, and Toxic friendship