Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Δάκρυα Ξυράφι

This was an action-packed book that's hard to put down, with some great themes of love, acceptance, and forgiveness and a few unforgettable characters. I'm also so glad I decided to go the audio route—a great narrator!

That being said, there is A LOT of graphic violence in this book, and that is not my thing. Maybe I shouldn't let that affect my rating, but I did, though I was able to tune out the violent parts or skip ahead. The villains felt a bit like caricatures to me, and I think this was because our two main characters are very morally gray. But we're still supposed to root for them, so the villains have to be worse than these morally gray characters—and the only way to really do that is make them caricatures and make them do things that are irredeemable. Also, I figured out who the big bad was pretty early so that reveal was not a surprise.

Back to our morally gray main characters—they made me super conflicted. On the one hand, they're written in a way that makes them endearing and likable despite the terrible things they've done, and they do have growth and development throughout the course of the story. But I'm not convinced that they're actually good people by the end...I guess I just wanted them to take more responsibility for their actions and actually deal with the consequences instead of just seeking revenge as a way to redeem themselves.

Also none of the side characters get any real development and that is always a disappointment to me.

Anyways, this book does make you think and is great for conversation; I think I would have liked it more if it had been more character-focused instead of action/violence/plot-focused, but that's probably on me because the book wasn't pretending to be anything else.

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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

5.0

A riveting, heart wrenching story of vengeance, justice, INjustice, and redemption. This book was everything I was hoping for and more. I am generally very critical of the 'bury your gays' trope, but I absolutely don't think this book falls into that category. Rather than using queer people as a device that pushes the story forward, the queer experience is central to the plot and is handled with both realism and graceful compassion. In addition, this book explored themes of racism, classism, corruption, and police brutality. Each of these were explored fully and expertly. In addition to the flawless structure of the book, the emotions this book put me through.... white hot rage, grief, compassion, love... the author was fantastic at eliciting these feelings from cover to cover. If you like books, read this.

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