Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

72 reviews

cumminsn's review

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-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

3.0

It is honestly sort of difficult to put into words my exact feelings on this book. Parts of it I liked quite a bit, while others had me physically rolling my eyes. The magic is very fun, and the lore of witches and how they connect to the earth and to each other I found compelling and interesting. But, once the conflict of the story started to come to a head, I found myself enjoying the book less and less. The villains almost become… cartoonish, in a way? It felt like the author was really trying to push home how terrible the antagonist is by just repeatedly having her state her transphobic viewpoints to the point where it was very irritating and tiresome even for me, a cisgender woman. 

While there is very positive transgender, and LGBT in general, representation here, there is also rampant transphobia that I could see being very triggering to some. Also, the overuse of swearing and pop culture references took away from my immersion as well. For a book that has different characters that it switches perspectives between, I sometimes found myself having a hard time remembering who was who, with no very large differences in tone from one character to the next. Other than the antagonist, of course. The fact that she was evil was about the most obvious thing in the whole book. 

I guess what disappointed me is that there wasn’t quite enough Fantasy to balance out the in-your-face politics that were constantly surfacing. I was more interested in the lore of the world, but the story seemed to stumble over itself to try and include as much political-correctness as possible that some of the characters didn’t even feel like genuine characters and more like just stereotypes being included for the sake of it, which was sad to read. Some of the language used, particularly internet-type wording and references, will likely not age well either. 

I forced myself to finish this one. I was invested enough to want to do it, but I don’t know that I’ll be reaching for the sequel right away, if it all. In the end, I felt underwhelmed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Blood, Car accident, Transphobia, Cursing, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Sexism, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Alcohol and Body horror

Minor: Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Gaslighting, Medical content, and Outing

sfdogmom's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

fantastic book. Very well written. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Gaslighting, Racism, Outing, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual content, and Transphobia

Minor: Kidnapping

emmajh91's review against another edition

challenging tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Transphobia, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Violence, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Hate crime, Car accident, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Dysphoria, Confinement, Alcohol, Sexual content, Blood, Vomit, War, and Toxic friendship

blacksphinx's review against another edition

tense medium-paced

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

2.0

On one hand, I feel like the main message of this book is important and I'm glad its been so successful. But I bounced off of the extremely causal prose hard, and it was difficult to read so much misogyny directed at women by other women (please stop calling each other cunts holy shit!) 

(I am also very tired of books that go "covid happened but we used magic to make it go away" ugh! And blaming the anti-vax movement on warlocks is so distasteful.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Death of parent, Hate crime, Transphobia, Kidnapping, Outing, Grief, and Misogyny

Moderate: Car accident, Fatphobia, Alcohol, Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Bullying, Cursing, Medical content, Classism, Lesbophobia, Racism, Confinement, Dysphoria, Violence, and Gaslighting

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Murder, War, Ableism, Abortion, and Emotional abuse

TW: transphobic, misogynistic, and ableist slurs. Internalized misogyny. Mention of drowning.

rivercat0338's review

challenging dark emotional funny 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, and Transphobia

Moderate: Death, Bullying, Car accident, Cursing, Blood, Confinement, Fatphobia, Alcohol, and Infidelity

Cliffhanger ending

chanlo1994's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Transphobia, Kidnapping, and Animal death

Moderate: Violence and Homophobia

Minor: War

readwithria's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

4.0

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven was the political, witchy-sisterhood book I didn’t know I needed.

I really enjoyed this book, and the characters took the cake. The POV characters, their children and wards, their partners, and all of the side characters felt so fleshed out and real. Their relationships were so fun to read about, even the bad ones.

I will say that it wasn’t until well into the book that I felt like I understood how the magic system worked. The delineation between the different types of witches and what they can do, plus the elemental aspect of witchery, made for a lot of information that I still don’t fully grasp.

I’m very excited to read The Shadow Cabinet! 4 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing, Transphobia, Murder, Violence, Toxic friendship, and Cursing

Moderate: Blood, War, Kidnapping, Alcohol, Car accident, Forced institutionalization, and Animal death

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

wallflovver's review

dark emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

after i got over the hurdle of switching povs, i really fell into the rhythm of the story

i loved these characters, bar one of course. i really enjoyed them together and seeing their sisterly bond. 

the magic system was also so interesting to get into! i liked the lore that made this magic it's own thing, and the reliance on nature was a lovely aspect that gets any magic system points from me!

this did feel like a very direct response to joanne revealing herself as a terf, and i revelled in that! very very enjoyable to me!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Blood, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Transphobia

Minor: Car accident, Child abuse, Alcohol, and Bullying

ridesthesun's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny inspiring reflective 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia

Moderate: Death, Misogyny, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Body shaming, Confinement, Cursing, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, and Gore

maddox22's review

challenging emotional tense 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? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Deadnaming, Child abuse, Death, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Violence, Outing, and Transphobia