Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Blood & Honey by Shelby Mahurin

25 reviews

kitsunasaur's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• 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

2.75

I originally dnf’d this book, due to it being frustratingly slow and boring for 85%, but I wanted to finish the series. I liked the first book so much and I hear the third book is better. Rereading it as an audio book from the beginning helped a lot. The acting really helped the slow parts and made some characters more lovable then before. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Grief, Toxic relationship, Murder, Violence, Religious bigotry, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, and Torture

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Kidnapping

theintrovertsbooks's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Racism, Xenophobia, Hate crime, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Violence, Cursing, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Torture, Child death, Confinement, Genocide, Kidnapping, War, Stalking, Religious bigotry, Body horror, Gore, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Cannibalism, and Child abuse

Minor: Alcohol

what_karla_reads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Religious bigotry

Minor: Sexual content and Cursing

geb's review against another edition

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing

Moderate: Sexual content

cait's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping, Sexism, Torture, Vomit, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Body horror, Death, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, War, Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Confinement, Cursing, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Police brutality, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Stalking, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

beckyyreadss's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-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

2.0

I honestly need to find a way to stop reading a series if I lose interest in this. I didn’t find the first book all that interesting and was sort of waiting for it to end and instead of going, I don’t think I'm going to like this series, I went and read the second one and oh my god, it was so slow.  

This book picks up where it left off in the first book, Lou, Reid, Coco and Ansel are on the run from covens, kingdom and the church after narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Dames Blanches. To elude the scores of witches and throngs of chasseurs at their heels, Lou and Reid need allies. Strong ones, but protection always comes with a price, and the group is forced to embrace on separate quests to build their forces, as Lou and Reid try to close the widening rift between them, the dastardly Morgane baits them into a lethal game of cat and mouse that threatens to destroy them. 

Okay, you know this book is bad when you are rooting for the villain to kill the MCs. The only one I liked out of this whole book was Ansel and well, we all saw what happened there. I just felt like this book was building and building for something to happen that never did. If someone was to ask me what this book was about tomorrow, I would have no clue whatsoever. I didn’t feel like there was any character development or progress between the couples that were formed in the first book. I didn’t understand or care for the plot again because both MCs drove me nuts. Expect for Lou and Reid, I remember two characters and that because they carried the book being Coco and Ansel. I felt like I was getting whiplash with both going against their word every chapter. I wanted them to each love each other and stick together or try and kill each other and again, the miscommunication trope drove this book into the dirt. This book could have been 100 pages long and it would have more plot that the 500-page book I've just finished.  

The only reason this didn’t get one star is because of the dual POV.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Kidnapping, Child death, and Sexual content

kat1105's review

dark emotional 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Violence, Child abuse, Cursing, Drug use, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, War, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Torture, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Self harm and Sexual content

rinku's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

 Looking at the average rating, it’s clear that Blood & Honey is the least popular book of the Serpent & Dove series, but I actually liked it more than the first book, so I gave it 3.5 stars. I can’t even really say why, probably because I got more attached to the characters and the world. 

After the events of the last book, Lou and her friends are fleeing from Morgane and realize that they need strong allies to defeat her. For this, Lou, and Reid part ways to convince different groups to join an alliance which I wasn’t the biggest fan of. I still had the feeling that a lot of things happened, even though not everything furthered the main plot or was fully understandable; I definitely wanted to know what would happen next. Nevertheless, there were some story elements I didn’t like as much, like the werewolves, but some that I enjoyed quite a lot, like Lou’s

Spoiler

corruption arc

. 

Of course, we need a silly third arc conflict between Reid and Lou that is then replaced by a more serious conflict where

Spoiler

Morgane kidnaps Célie and our squad needs to come for her rescue. It was quite obvious that Ansel would follow them and die at the end, so his death had not the impact on me it probably supposed to had

. But all in all, I really liked the dramatic finale, even though there was a deus ex machina towards the end, which was a bit unsatisfying, just like the fact that

Spoiler

Morgane escaped again

. 

In general, I enjoy the magic system and the fact that they have to give something in exchange to use the magic. The circus setting introduced in this book was nice as well. The world building though is not perfect, since too often, there are terms used from our world, like “month” or the like. Besides this, I had some problems with the writing; some of the similes used are a bit weird and the humour is too childish in parts as well. 

Looking at the characters, I still like both Reid and Lou. In some moments, Lou is actually funny, and Reid is cute, especially how awkward he is with the circus people.  Of course, there’s a random reason why they’re not allowed to get closer to each other and there’s quite some miscommunication between them, but I liked them. The rest of the squad was nice as well, besides Claud, who just annoyed me. I also really like Beau and Célie and I’m quite happy that

Spoiler

Ansel x Coco didn’t become a thing since he’s underage

. Besides them though, I mixed up some of the characters since they’re not too individual. 

Like I’ve written at the beginning, Blood & Honey wasn’t for me as bad as many people make it out to be which surprised me. There are still likable characters and a general intriguing world and story. I hope that the story will come to a satisfying conclusion with Gods & Monsters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Murder, Violence, Death, and Sexual content

Moderate: Child death, Fire/Fire injury, and Cannibalism

Minor: Animal death

roaze's review

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

• 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? Yes

1.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexism, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Kidnapping, Sexual content, War, Misogyny, Torture, Alcohol, Religious bigotry, and Vomit

thebowandthebook's review

adventurous dark 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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Violence, Torture, Murder, and Grief

Moderate: Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Cursing, and Sexual content

Minor: Gore