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smartie_5748'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? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Body shaming, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, and Kidnapping
joensign'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
4.0
Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Medical content and Death of parent
anniereads221's review against another edition
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
magpi3'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
2.0
> Very diverse cast (although this could have been expanded over more than just the first three paragraphs of each characters introduction)
> Bare bones of the idea was very good as all I knew going into it was that there were two brothers where one was obsessed with vigilante superheroes but his brother is the one who gets the powers. It is an excellent concept.
Bad:
> Most of the characters were either forgettable or unlikeable or both. They were very one dimensional and didn’t (for 95%) undergo any further development
> The worldbuilding wasn’t well-developed and was confusing as no concepts were fully established before they were hand-waved away and with a universe with different types of superheroes or magic-users, that isn’t a good thing
Other:
I wanted to like this, I really did. But it started badly and only got worse.
Graphic: Xenophobia and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Racism
sssssoup'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
4.25
Graphic: Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Kidnapping, and Death of parent
Minor: Bullying, Cancer, Confinement, Drug use, Gun violence, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Medical content
jenarae'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
3.25
Graphic: Death, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Child abuse, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Vomit
owenblacker's review
- 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? No
3.5
It’s not a bad novel — especially given it’s a YA book and I’m not the target audience — but there were a couple of elements I didn’t like, and one plot point that just hit one of my personal red buttons and left a bad taste in my mouth, but that probably won’t upset most other readers in the same way.
The broad plot is that, in an alternate New York of a world with magic, 2 brothers idolise the Spell Walkers, superheroes born with magic who fight against “specters”, who steal their magic from endangered magical beasts, like the phoenixes from the museum exhibit where Emil works. Then, in a fight on the Subway, Emil seems to use magic…
I was disappointed with the worldbuilding in a similar way as I was with Bright, the 2017 Will Smith urban fantasy Netflix film I reviewed at the time, where the existence of fairies, elves, orcs and centaurs appear to have had absolutely no other impact on reality. In Infinity Son, New York is thoroughly recognisable as our modern Gotham, but with magic and some extra events that happened in our characters’ backplots; the essential balance of the world is otherwise unchanged.
The book is fine; I initially rated the book with 5 stars (out of 5) immediately after reading it. But I withdrew it from the Pride blogpost because I couldn't bring myself to write it up appropriately and I argued with myself about whether to bring it down to 3 or 4. It’s good, but it didn’t sit with me fondly the way so many of the other books did here.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
CN: cruelty, abuse and murder of animals, mental health and depression, hostage capture, murder, frequent mention of deaths of parents, uncomfortable sibling dynamics. Also, I just plain didn’t like some of the characters, albeit in ways that are clearly intentional.