Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - Открытие ведьм

Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

Открытие ведьм by Дебора Харкнесс, Deborah Harkness

7 reviews

lenorayoder's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

I really liked this book! It was a bit of an odd reading experience, because once the romance gets going it starts to feel like a different and slightly worse book. I loved the first 15% or so of this book and thought it would be a five star read. At that point it becomes clear that Diana and Matthew's romance is going to progress a lot more quickly than I thought, and we start to run into a lot of romance novel cliches. This would have normally merited a 3 star rating, but I think Harkness' world building manages to make the cliches make enough since that I'll forgive their presence, even if I think the book would be better without them and with a slower relationship build. Diana's absolute denial

and spellbinding

make the different tone of the beginning of the book make sense, but I think it's a shame that the beginning feels so much better than the rest of the book.

I loved all of the world building, and I think it helps the romance and certain plot elements seem less ridiculous. The fact that the relationship we see in this book takes place over

40 days

seems stupid, but Harkness makes it clear that Diana and Matthew are not human, and holding them to human standards is a mistake. These are creatures who can literally experience

love at first sight, as shown by Diana's parents. That's not a dramatization, sometimes it actually happens

. That said, I still think the romance isn't well-written, and is the weakest part of the book by far. Diana could seem like a Mary Sue, but you have to remember that her

mother, Rebecca, seems to have seen her future before even conceiving her. Diana was basically born and raised to create some serious change in this world

. I mean, someone has to do it, right? Of course that's going to be the person an author writes about.

This book was consistently engaging and enjoyable to read. I was constantly theorizing and asking questions. I'm looking forward to getting more answers in the next books, and I know I will because this is clearly a planned out series that's laying groundwork with this first book. I wish the romance felt as polished as the beginning of the book made me think it would be, but I had a fun time and was never bored.

Final thoughts: I love the Bishop house, we stan characters getting privacy! I hope someone kills

Gerbert dead soon

, what the fuck was that with

Juliette and how many people has he done that to

??? I don't get why everyone was alarmed at the idea of

Matt killing Satu. Like she's going around deeply torturing witches and who knows what else? Sometimes when you behave like that people kill you

! Agatha being the only decent

member of the Congregation

we've seen makes me curious to find out if it's always been

corrupt/fucked up

, or if that's something that developed over time. Don't like the whole

bloodline = power

thing even though it's kind of central to the plot. Given the timeline of these books I think it would be very funny if Diana

gets back to the present "quickly" enough that Hamish never sends her letter backing out of the conference,

and the entire series ends with her giving the keynote presentation she started this book being stressed out about. Perfect ending.

Content Warnings

torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

lportilla's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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caffeinated_gills's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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paperpaladin's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

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

2.25

This book was one of the few times that I was able to come into a book completely blind. Several people had mentioned that this book was really good and I saw that there was an Amazon series of it so I decided to give it a shot. I was expecting a fantasy series set in the modern world but that is not really what this book is about. So I was surprised when this book turned out to be a vampire romance.

Vampire romances are not my cup of tea. I can see why people like them but the overly protective, borderline stalking is just a turn off for me. So that puts me and this book at odds immediately. However I will say that it is well written but entirely too slow. The plot doesn't feel like it starts moving until halfway through the book and even then it will start and stop a ton. About 60% in I thought things were about to get really intense for the rest of the book but instead the problem was resolved and then back to the slow burn.

Also this book was a lot about magic racism which is just not super fun. I am glad that everyone is working together to stop that but I was looking for something more magical and less disheartening.

My rating system
1 - Did not enjoy
2 - Not irredeemable but has too many flaws to say I enjoyed
3 - Enjoyed it
4 - Great book but didn't love it
5 - Amazing book

Content Warnings

applesaucecreachur's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

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

1.5

God this book sucked. It seemed like Matthew’s (the centuries-old vampire love interest) name was on every page at least once, even in scenes where he did not have a physical or dialogue presence. I’ve been calling it “post-grad Twilight”
because of how many similarities there are – Falling ridiculously fast for a vampire who watches the MC sleep, is controlling, and who constantly is explaining how dangerous of a predator he is (ya got that right, pal).
It took everything in me to be able to finish this thing. And I was SO excited about a lighthearted book of witchcraft! How do people enjoy it? Jeez.
... Although, that being said, I REALLY enjoyed the Bishops’ house. It was hands-down the best character. And Em and Sarah were actually a halfway-decent depiction of lesbians.

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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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