Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

40 reviews

draculagirl's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I’ll use this as a lesson to try not to buy/read books that are more than 500 pages and check too see if it’s even remotely good. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cursing, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Vomit

lauren_macauley's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Sexual content, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Vomit

ngm's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Self harm

Minor: Rape

nebulasaurus's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death of parent, Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Religious bigotry, Vomit, Body horror, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Blood, Physical abuse, Self harm, Gore, Grief, Child abuse, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

cariam's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Cursing, Self harm, and Child abuse

mpbookreviews's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Vomit, Violence, Sexual content, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Blood

Minor: Self harm and Animal death

victoriacp769's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

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

4.0

I think this is a great book, not the best one I read, but it’s good and I love this type of stories. Something I will say is that it was really difficult for me to read at the beginning, cause I found the first part of the book really slow and not much was happening.. but then in the second part of the book all the things you where holding on to starts happening, all the spicyness, the challenges, the mistery, everything. It really starts being entertaining and captivating. Also, in the third part of the book it continues on being that way, which is good, but something I did notice is that the author started rushing everything in the last chapters. In the last chapters there is tooo many things going on and too many plot twist and in a certain way it can be good but for me it was really rushed and uneven considering all the other chapters of the book. Also, the end was wayyy too open, I know that maybe she wanted to do that so that more readers would want to reach to the sequel, but personally I think it was a really confusing ending. 
Anyways, the book is good, really good, but the writing was not the best.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Self harm, and Animal death

some_summer_writing's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Cursing, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Self harm, and Torture

Minor: Vomit and War

shorts_family's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

Overall the book was a pretty decent enemies to lovers story with a few intriguing plot twists. I removed some stars because it heavily romanticizes possessiveness without critique. Also, the story takes place in a vaguely historic French setting where women are seen as lower beings/property to own in marriage, but luckily that concept IS directly critiqued on multiple occasions.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Misogyny, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

Minor: Rape, Vomit, and War

queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense 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

4.0

 4 ⭐ CW: violence, persecution, religious patriarchy, blood magic, self harm, forced marriage, burning alive, suicide, descriptions of blood and gore, grotesque descriptions/body horror, sex, child abandonment

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin is the first book her trilogy. We follow Lou, a headstrong and spunky witch, who is living in hiding as a thief in a French inspired city, where witches are hunted by Chasseurs. We also follow Reid, the captain of the Chasseurs, and he is stoic, self-loathing, and has a stick up his ass.

While Lou is attempting to steal a magical ring that could protect her from her mother, she is caught and somehow gets entangled in a forced marriage to Reid, to both of their dismays. We get a really good slow burn enemies to lovers that doesn't make me want to scream about unhealthy relationships. I loved Reid and Lou's banter, and how she got him to open up a little.

We get great side characters too! Coco is a badass blood witch of color and is also bi! I love her so much, and I hope we get more of Coco next book. Ansel is my baby and must be protected! Even Beau started to grow on me in the end, especially when Coco gets under his skin.

The world building was great, and I appreciated the magic system for both types of witches. Dames de Blanc get their magic from nature, and nature demands balance. Dames Rouges use blood magic, so their magic comes from within. Excited to learn more about them next book!

Although there was one really steamy part (🌶️❤️‍🔥🥵) I expected there to be more the way people on here talk about this book. It seemed pretty tame to me. Mahurin has infused messages about how at its core, religious patriarchy is about power and control, and if you can't control a thing, you must destroy it. We also get themes on how life isn't black and white, but many shades of gray. I love me some morally gray characters, and Lou fits that. Excited for the next book! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Misogyny, Blood, Self harm, Body horror, and Sexual content

Moderate: Suicide