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hrobles1009's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Drug use, Sexual assault, Rape, Addiction, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder
akirma's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual assault, Rape, Sexual violence, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Blood, Body horror, and Classism
Minor: Vomit
kirnet's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
I really enjoyed the prose in this, and I ended up really loving Alex's character. I found her really compelling and was happy to follow her thoughts and actions. I love how flawed she is, as well as how she struggles to cope with it. Her relationships with the other characters are also great, mainly Dawes and North. She has a lot of on page chemistry with everyone that keeps things flowing. The story is interesting (though I did predict every twist), and the world building was interesting, but my main gripe with this book was the pacing. A lot of people mention not being invested in the book until very far in, and while I didn't have that exact problem, I did find a lot of the info dumps pretty grating. The book also spends a lot of time jumping back to the past, mostly to set up Darlington's character, or to explain parts of Alex's tragic backstory. In my opinion they happened too often and were too indulgent, really taking me out of the current storyline and investigation. I wonder if it would have been better to have made this book the second in the series, to have the first one actually show Alex and Darlington's growing relationship and ending with the cliffhanger of
Graphic: Drug use, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Rape, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Murder, and Addiction
kenziekat's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Moderate: Violence, Sexual assault, Murder, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Physical abuse and Injury/Injury detail
battysbooks's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Sexual assault, Classism, Rape, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual violence, and Blood
emilyverceles's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Murder, Blood, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Excrement, Gore, and Sexual harassment
uncica's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Otherwise, it's a really interesting story with a couple of mysteries, multi-faceted characters, and a solid magic system. I particularly like how Bardugo incorporated her fictional world within the real-life New Haven/Yale campus. She played off Yale's real-world secret societies quite well. Bardugo also made it difficult to predict the resolution.
Would recommend it to anyone interested in fantasy and mysteries.
Quotes:
He didn’t know how precious a normal life could be, how easy it was to drift away from average. You started sleeping until noon, skipped one class, one day of school, lost one job, then another, forgot the way that normal people did things. You lost the language of ordinary life. And then, without meaning to, you crossed into a country from which you couldn’t return. You lived in a state where the ground always seemed to be slipping from beneath your feet, with no way back to someplace solid.
Death words could be anything, really, as long as they spoke of the things Grays feared most—the finality of passing, a life without legacy, the emptiness of the hereafter.
Peace was like any high. It couldn’t last. It was an illusion, something that could be interrupted in a moment and lost forever. Only two things kept you safe: money and power.
...harmless people high on nothing more than their own pretensions.
Moderate: Rape
Minor: Drug use, Addiction, Murder, Blood, Death, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Violence
adastrapermare's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Graphic: Drug abuse, Rape, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Gore
manou_r's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Graphic: Drug abuse, Violence, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, Death, and Sexual violence
mokiedokes's review against another edition
Moderate: Gore and Injury/Injury detail