Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

53 reviews

miabellawymer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

3.75

Read at your own risk. 

Oh my God. This book drove me insane. I was captivated from the start, and this book will haunt me for years. Felicity and Ellis are both nuts in their own way, and it makes for an intriguing read. The end, however, was dissatisfying. What the hell was that. I am traumatised.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Sexual content, Violence, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Animal death, Blood, Cursing, Death, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, and Toxic friendship

17kmcollins's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Murder, and Sexual content

ka_ke's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

4.0

Lesbians. Witchcraft. Murder. Dark Academia. What more could you possibly want? A Lesson in Vengeance is a good book. It’s filled with a diverse cast of lovable girls, discusses the difficulties behind families, queer identities, and mental health, all while holding a sense of mystery. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Mental illness, Cursing, Murder, Vomit, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, and Death

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Addiction, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Abandonment, Body horror, and Suicidal thoughts

achay91's review against another edition

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Moderate: Cursing

Minor: Eating disorder and Sexual content

lizgriffinwords's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

3.75

Delightfully twisty and saturated with dark academia vibes! The prose had such sensory detail — I could truly feel the crisp snow and the bitter coffee. Felicity is a truly unreliable narrator, sometimes calm & aloof, sometimes plagued by ghosts and creepy happenings, leaving the reader to only guess what is real and what is manipulation… until the moment all is revealed.

Content notes: death, murder, manipulation and emotional abuse, underage use of alcohol/drugs, brief discussions of lesbiphobia, transphobia, & racism.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Drug use, and Mental illness

Minor: Lesbophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexual content, and Animal death

itsnotalakeitsanocean's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This book is decent but I don't feel it fully delivers on the themes that it sets up at the beginning of the book. It always felt like I was waiting for something more interesting to happen, which it did on occasion but not enough to warrant a higher rating. I feel that the author unintentionally pointed out in the acknowledgements section of the book when she said she had a notebook of unwritten ideas, and she chose several to string together.

Felicity and Ellis were both strong characters, but I think the supporting cast could have been better utilised. Case in point

the biggest contribution of one of the side characters, a Black girl, was to talk about the school's racist past and how her grandmother was one of the first Black alumna. Since she didn't really get much to do outside of that role, she came across as a bit of a caricature instead of the critique of how white academia is that the author probably intended

.

If it's one thing the book has going for it, it's the atomosphere. Lee manages to perfectly capture the feeling of a gothic boarding school isolated from the rest of the world, and the girls that inhabit it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Grief

Moderate: Toxic relationship and Toxic friendship

Minor: Racism, Homophobia, and Sexual content

mars_ira's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Mental illness, Grief, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Eating disorder, Forced institutionalization, and Bullying

dernhelms_bag's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic friendship, Murder, Violence, Toxic relationship, Grief, Alcoholism, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Abandonment, Gun violence, and Blood

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Vomit, Bullying, Classism, Lesbophobia, Body horror, and Eating disorder

jmross10's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

2.5

The premise of this book sounded excellent and in the first few chapters it really seems like something epic is going to happen. Then you hit the halfway point and you start to wonder what the plot actually is. The problem being, that’s around the point you stop caring. 

At 3/4 the way through I guessed the ending and probably would have DNF’d if I hadn’t been curious enough to see if I was right. I was, for the record, but it was so anticlimactic that being right wasn’t even satisfying. I wish I’d read something else instead. 

To me, this reads as more of a domestic thriller (that just happened to be in a school) than it does dark academia (I know opinions on what this actually entails vary). The plot was familiar in that I basically read the same thing earlier this year and Lee didn’t add anything to it that made it feel new or worthwhile. 

I wish Lee had leaned into the Supernatural aspect more because the story of the witches and the mystery surrounding their murders would have been a far more interesting than what we actually get. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gun violence, Animal death, Gaslighting, Murder, Vomit, Alcohol, Violence, Grief, Bullying, Death, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Body shaming, Eating disorder, and Sexual content

taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Grief, Blood, Murder, Death, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, and Animal death

Moderate: Drug use, Sexual content, and Cursing

Minor: Alcoholism, Suicide, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Classism, Racism, and Confinement