Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by rafafinhass
Queen of Carrion: A Dark Paranormal Gothic Romance by Aiden Pierce
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
I'm quite surprised that this is the sequel to a book I gave 4 stars, but I think I'm cursed to hate all the second books in the duologies I read.
Queen of Carrion was a disappointment and extremely monotonous.
I found the plot with Belial's brothers, the Lords of Hell, to be truly endlessly repetitive.
I was stuck for hours at 80% because I couldn't stand so much unnecessary or meaningless stuff.
I don't know what the authors' intention was in making this the main plot of the book and not a direct continuation of the story and the hurt between Rayven and Belial, but I didn't like the direction the story went at all.
For me, it lost all the growing depth that existed in the first book. It threw away all the interesting emotional baggage between the protagonists in the previous one just for the convenience of being shocking and heavy.
Rayven goes through so much that in the end, her forgiveness isn't really hers. It's more about the relief of knowing that Belial is the least bad thing she'll ever encounter.
Rayven's dreams are completely out of the tone of the story. The authors decided to separate the protagonists, but they still wanted explicit scenes between them. And honestly, you can't have it all.
You either make them stay separated permanently or keep them together. Walking this weird fine line that shows neither separation nor the union of the two is like killing your story.
There was no reason for me to be tense about Rayven's situation if I knew that Belial was going to appear in her dream, say a few things to calm her down, and she was going to have sex with him.
And there's a torture porn vibe here that I don't like at all. The constant gore and sexual harassment scenes are unnecessary. If the goal was to show how bad the Lords of Hell are, I think there are more intelligent ways than thinking that gratuitous violence for the sake of being shocking is a fundamental topic for the construction of horror.
Not to mention the unbearable repetitions that the book suffers from. Many of the scenes in Rayven's dreams are copies of the first book, and her being passed down from brother to brother was almost enough for me to DNF this book.
Queen of Carrion is very confusing in its premise, and I find the ending too quick and simplistic. There was no reason for everything that happened in this book to exist. It's a completely dispensable book. From now on, Lord of Bones is a standalone for me.
Queen of Carrion was a disappointment and extremely monotonous.
I found the plot with Belial's brothers, the Lords of Hell, to be truly endlessly repetitive.
I was stuck for hours at 80% because I couldn't stand so much unnecessary or meaningless stuff.
I don't know what the authors' intention was in making this the main plot of the book and not a direct continuation of the story and the hurt between Rayven and Belial, but I didn't like the direction the story went at all.
For me, it lost all the growing depth that existed in the first book. It threw away all the interesting emotional baggage between the protagonists in the previous one just for the convenience of being shocking and heavy.
Rayven's dreams are completely out of the tone of the story. The authors decided to separate the protagonists, but they still wanted explicit scenes between them. And honestly, you can't have it all.
You either make them stay separated permanently or keep them together. Walking this weird fine line that shows neither separation nor the union of the two is like killing your story.
And there's a torture porn vibe here that I don't like at all. The constant gore and sexual harassment scenes are unnecessary. If the goal was to show how bad the Lords of Hell are, I think there are more intelligent ways than thinking that gratuitous violence for the sake of being shocking is a fundamental topic for the construction of horror.
Not to mention the unbearable repetitions that the book suffers from. Many of the scenes in Rayven's dreams are copies of the first book, and her being passed down from brother to brother was almost enough for me to DNF this book.
Queen of Carrion is very confusing in its premise, and I find the ending too quick and simplistic. There was no reason for everything that happened in this book to exist. It's a completely dispensable book. From now on, Lord of Bones is a standalone for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual harassment
Moderate: Body shaming, Confinement, Incest, Violence, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Misogyny, Sexism, Alcohol