Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Corrupt by Penelope Douglas

99 reviews

jessanicolesingh's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Rape, Kidnapping, and Murder

Minor: Animal death and Death of parent

hilary89's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I liked the story fine but the male narrator really ruined the audiobook for me. His voice for Rika was so cringey it totally took me out of the story. I think I’ll continue the series at some point, but just read it on my kindle instead.

Also docking a star for the constant and obnoxious song references. Note to authors: no one is impressed with your (in this case, terrible) taste in music. Moreover, name-dropping songs totally takes readers out of the moment. If they don’t know the song it adds nothing to the scene, and worse, if they do know the song and dislike it then that can ruin the scene. Show us the type of music with your description rather than telling us the exact name of the song. Unless it’s a universally known artist, but still leave the song up to the reader’s imagination, ie. “A Bob Dylan song came on over the radio.” Name-dropping song titles just makes your writing sound super amateur.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and Classism

Minor: Grief

bluedreamgirlco's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

0.25

I'm surprised this man didn't catch acute torticollis with the amount of times he was jerking his fucking chin.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Animal death, Misogyny, and Alcohol

honeybeewitched87's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Kidnapping, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

one_more_chapter96's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Fairly well written and an interesting plot with a lot of dark elements emotionally/psychologically. I liked the points where Rika and the Horsemen worked together and were bonding, and I loved the elements of Kai & Michael. The push and pull with Michael was hot but a bit frustrating at times with him being so emotionally constipated. Overall an easy read with a suspenseful and spicy plot.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

kittykels's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

2.75

The writing wasn't terrible, but somehow this story still fell really flat. Despite all the crazy excitement happening, I was bored. The characters weren't very likeable and I LOATHED the endless name-dropping of random songs. I don't care if I like the songs or not, I hate when authors do this. It takes away from the story instead of adding to it. 

I read this for the spice and the drama, but the spice wasn't great. The writing suddenly turned bad during those scenes, with terrible word choice and descriptions. 

I won't continue the series and doubt I'll read anything else by the author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Rape, Violence, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Animal death

hannahhagedorn's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

2.75

This plot was all over the place. I’m not entirely sure I could make an accurate timeline of the insane events that took place. This book does jump back and forth between present day and three years prior which I don’t normally like but it made sense for the plot. I was on the fence the whole time on whether I liked any of the guys or even Rika herself. Just when I thought someone was redeemable they would screw it up. But the worst person got drowned by karma… fucking Trevor and that made me happy. I would say that Kai was the least bad character, Will was more of an idiot with some comedic relief, Damon is the embodiment of a dumpster fire, and Michael was more hot n cold than the Katy Perry song. That man knew what he wanted but lied to himself and hurt everyone else in the process. Rika is a dumbass and should’ve ended up with Alex, the girl who’s only personality was being an escort but at least she never tried to hurt her. I’ll probably read the rest of the series cause I wanna see Kai’s story and honestly I’m just curious how they’re gonna try and redeem Damon. Anyways definitely taking a break from “the four horsemen” for now (lame ass pranks made me bored). All the love, always <3

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Kidnapping, and Murder

krista_timm's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

A little slow in the beginning, but then I was able to enjoy it once it picked up. I'm not a big fan of Michael -- college guy picking on a high school kid... come on. He was frustrating me to no end because of how hot and cold he was.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Bullying

hapalyn's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

This book is generally very taboo, blurs the lines of consent a lot (I do NOT recommend to anyone who is disturbed by sexual assault scenes or threats of sexual assault several times). I went into it looking for a darker but good plotline. The plotline is interesting enough; I’m curious to see where it goes from here. The town certainly feels atmospheric. I wasn’t a fan of the romance and scenes like that. Ironically, I may be one of the few people just interested in the plot. Definitely look at trigger warnings. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Cursing, Misogyny, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Child abuse, Gun violence, Rape, and Fire/Fire injury

neness's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, and Stalking

Moderate: Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Alcoholism