Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

42 reviews

foxwish's review

adventurous dark emotional lighthearted reflective 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

4.0

A gripping storyline all the way through with highly emotive themes and dynamic characters. The plot was intriguing and difficult to predict, the magic system was fun to learn about and I loved how it was linked to nature. 

It was wonderful to read a fantasy story from the perspective of adult women, where many of them have kids/kid charges and it's an accomplishment that the children were all dynamic characters and not frustrating to read about or detrimental to the plot in a way they sometimes are. Themes of motherhood and found family are very strong here.

The romances and friendships all felt organic to me and I was definitely rooting for the budding new romance in the book.

The trans storyline was by far the strongest and was what made this book 5 stars for me, it used a great many talking points I've heard from trans people, allies and TERFs so it was bone chilling how accurate to real life the arguments the characters were having felt.

We also get POC characters and lesbian characters, but their struggles were sidelined somewhat and I am hoping they will get their chance to shine in the next book.

I'm glad the second book is out because I can't wait to read it and find out where these characters go next.

Edit: After reading the second book I've changed my rating to 4 stars as I realised the ending to this book destroys multiple characters storylines and is partially responsible for book 2 being disappointing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Kidnapping, and Transphobia

Moderate: Car accident, Infidelity, Murder, Outing, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Sexual content, Classism, Ableism, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, and War

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Eating disorder, and Toxic relationship

laurataylor's review

adventurous medium-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? It's complicated

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Abandonment, Violence, Cursing, Child abuse, Murder, and Transphobia

black_cat_iiix's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Toxic friendship, Child abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Racism, Animal cruelty, and War

Minor: Slavery, Abortion, Addiction, Alcohol, Car accident, Toxic relationship, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

frmeden's review

adventurous emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Transphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Car accident, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Sexual content, War, and Racism

dannilmp's review

emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This book gives a whole new meaning to the term HMRC and quite frankly I prefer it to the original meaning. A book about a group of grown up childhood friends from very different backgrounds who have to come together once again to prevent world destruction. 

While HMRC feels like it has the setting for a pretty used story line, the detail and depth Dawson went into to explore topics including racism, transphobia, cultural differences in magic and how society treats individuals all wrapped into a thrilling tale about magic and world crises makes for a really interesting read! 

I loved the depth that the characters had, and the way sensitive topics were covered felt like it was covered in a good way. While this meant I did have to frequently take rest breaks in order to absorb all the information and to think through the implications of certain character's actions or consquences. While the book ended on quite the cliffhanger, I'm looking forward to what the sequel has in stall for these women! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, War, Transphobia, Violence, Death, and Racism

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Animal death

alexiab's review against another edition

challenging funny tense 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

I'm breaking my self imposed review hiatus for this book because I am ABSOLUTELY LOSING MY MIND OVER HOW GOOD IT WAS. Every single aspect is just OUTSTANDING.

While there are a ton of excellent commentaries happening throughout this story about racism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism there is also an INCREDIBLE fantasy plot with exciting action and heartstopping twists. I can't BELIEVE the exciting and emotional way it ended, and I am champing at the absolute bit for the next book. I'm obsessed with this writing, the balance of character study/women's fiction aspects, world building, and fast paced plot is fabulous. I would read another one of these books for the characters alone, but THAT PLOT! OOOOH THAT PLOT SHE IS SPICY SHE IS EXCITING SHE IS DESTROYING MY VERY SOUL FROM THE INSIDE OUT.

And god, the social commentary on trans women and their place in women's spaces? The white feminism and how it doesn't benefit women of colour? The raging white women fighting for "women's rights" but only women who look like her?! GOD. JUST AMAZING.

A huge part of me thinks this book was written as a direct response to JK Rowling and her bullshit TERF rhetoric, and my god is it incredible.  The setting, the fantasy elements, and the themes work so beautifully together and paint the biggest "fuck you" to every TERF out there, I couldn't be more thrilled.

A huge part of me expected Helena's story to go a very different direction, and I am SO thrilled that this didn't remotely pander to the "we're better than them, show them kindness" bullshit that some people spew. every TERF deserves to burn in hell, I'm not sorry. RIP Helena, you crusty bitch.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Cursing, Abandonment, Dysphoria, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Grief, Hate crime, Sexual content, Infidelity, Kidnapping, and Violence

Minor: Alcohol and Self harm

ellenigrace's review

3.0

I loved Niamh and Theo and the whole community of Hebden Bridge witches, but the sheer amount of transphobia was hard to read. Plus, the final chapter felt like a betrayal of the time the reader has spent getting to know one of the characters, for the sake of setting up for a sequel I'm not sure is needed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Transphobia, and Violence

Moderate: War

astropova's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia and Violence

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Body horror, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Kidnapping

Minor: Confinement and Death

maregred's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, Classism, Death, Blood, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, War, Death of parent, Infidelity, Racism, and Sexism

Minor: Abortion, Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, and Sexual content

th18's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Heres a few points I noted down whilst reading:

• Fast pace and seemed more YA than anything, too many modern references for me personally but each to their own. 
•  This also felt like the second book of the series at the start there was just so much unexplained things thrown in.
•  Whilst the book did deal with modern topics such as race and trans rights, I wish it also talked a bit about harmful beauty standards due to Elle literally hiding her true self from her husband. 
•  I feel like the amount of swear words was also unnneeded.
•  I love the idea of queer witches and empowered modern women but I feel like the talk about adulthood was very bleak
•  The writing and worldbuilding also felt quite underdeveloped which was disappointing 
•  Finally the use of the d slur was completely unneeded

 Although I've only mentioned the negatives, I did have an okay time reading this and it was quite engaging but it could definitely have been better. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Bullying, Death, Deadnaming, Gaslighting, Classism, Cursing, Car accident, Dysphoria, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Transphobia, Child abuse, and Alcohol

Minor: Abandonment, Toxic friendship, Racism, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Outing, Kidnapping, Self harm, Infidelity, and Abortion