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jaynovara'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
4.0
Graphic: Body shaming, Deadnaming, Transphobia, Religious bigotry, and Murder
Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Abandonment, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail
fourhand13's review against another edition
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I feel like a lot of people are jumping the gun to be like "thing bad so that means book bad >:(" with any of the iffy things depicted (e.g.
The dialogue comes across as quite cheesy and stereotypical at times and I do think the writing quality went down a touch towards the end with the action scenes but over all, not the worst read.
Aside from the openly noted content warnings I will say that if you have an aversion to animal death skip chapter 1 (niamh's first one) at least and possibly parts of chapter 21.
Also if you're susceptible to paranoia about having people read your thoughts, this might be a miss too cos there's a LOT of that.
Graphic: Animal death, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Car accident, Murder, and Outing
Moderate: Child abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Violence, Grief, and War
Minor: Injury/Injury detail
tw for mind reading/ invasion of thoughts,ashley_a_reads'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
2.75
Graphic: Transphobia, Violence, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Sexual content, Blood, and Car accident
Minor: Infidelity and Racism
ashley_reya's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Dawson writes a wonderful story of how sisterhood, ignorance, and fear can truly muddy the waters of a coven. A coming of age of mixed with the trials and tribulations of an older group of friends. It’s always so refreshing to read stories of older friend groups/people not in their twenties hahaha.
Graphic: Deadnaming, Death, Transphobia, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Blood, Kidnapping, Car accident, and War
Minor: Child abuse
booksandteatime'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
3.75
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Transphobia, Blood, Car accident, Murder, and War
itsy719's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Infidelity, Sexism, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Body shaming, Homophobia, and Vomit
cumminsn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
While there is very positive transgender, and LGBT in general, representation here, there is also rampant transphobia that I could see being very triggering to some. Also, the overuse of swearing and pop culture references took away from my immersion as well. For a book that has different characters that it switches perspectives between, I sometimes found myself having a hard time remembering who was who, with no very large differences in tone from one character to the next. Other than the antagonist, of course. The fact that she was evil was about the most obvious thing in the whole book.
I guess what disappointed me is that there wasn’t quite enough Fantasy to balance out the in-your-face politics that were constantly surfacing. I was more interested in the lore of the world, but the story seemed to stumble over itself to try and include as much political-correctness as possible that some of the characters didn’t even feel like genuine characters and more like just stereotypes being included for the sake of it, which was sad to read. Some of the language used, particularly internet-type wording and references, will likely not age well either.
I forced myself to finish this one. I was invested enough to want to do it, but I don’t know that I’ll be reaching for the sequel right away, if it all. In the end, I felt underwhelmed.
Graphic: Cursing, Hate crime, Misogyny, Sexism, Transphobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Car accident, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Body horror and Alcohol
Minor: Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, Outing, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
minervacerridwen's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
The metaphors, painfully relevant to our current society and the rising transphobia in the UK, were delightfully unsubtle. However, sadly, the book seemed to come with its own set of issues. I was puzzled by how a book that's rooted so firmly in the theme of inclusion apparently still views being non-binary as something weird and "difficult to get right", without that ever coming back to bite any of the characters. And then there was the ending...
Please mind the content warnings.
Graphic: Death, Transphobia, and Murder
Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Hate crime, Racism, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, War, and Classism
emmajh91's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Death, Transphobia, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Hate crime, Infidelity, Sexual content, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Car accident, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail
batbaby's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Minor spoiler
——————————
3/4 way through I was sure I wouldn’t read the sequel but then when the action finally begins and the last chapter!! Maybe I will 🤔
Graphic: Child abuse and Transphobia
Moderate: Body horror, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Car accident, Murder, Outing, and War