Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

15 reviews

sufubr's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.0

Good start to the series, will continue reading

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

uranaishi's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Hate crime, Racism, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Racial slurs, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual content, Medical content, Outing, Sexual harassment, and War

meganpbennett's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I picked this up on a whim, and later learned that my mom really likes the series and was surprised that I hadn't heard of it before then. 

We open with River making a mistake that gets him sent to Slough House, with the Slow Horses. A time later, things start slowly happening, with a journalist being investigated. This section is very very slow, and the timeline is so convoluted as to be "wibbly wobbly", making it very hard to figure out what's happening in the present time or what happened in the past, or even, what's not happening, what didn't happen. 

The kidnapping and the actual plot involving who the kid is and why he was kidnapped is awful and many sections seemed unnecessary. 

I found the first half far too slow, and the second half was way too full of sections where a character would say that he knew things and then the next sentence would be "so he told them". 

The character's names were far too similar; I gave up around the middle of the book ever figuring out who was who and why I should care about them. The writing was decent and the thriller aspect was good, but the pacing was way off, and the "so he told them" lines started getting frustrating very early on. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Blood, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, and Injury/Injury detail

smitinghedgehog's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Confinement, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

colpenbewley's review against another edition

adventurous 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

3.25

The whole book seems as though it is simply introducing a cast of characters for the rest of the series. I feel plenty of other books manage more eloquent introductions. I didn't feel any connection with the vast majority of the characters and it felt rather two-dimensional at times. The plot was interesting, however, and I would probably read another in the series to see if it comes alive once all the characters are established. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Xenophobia