Reviews tagging 'Cannibalism'

Blood & Honey by Shelby Mahurin

13 reviews

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

---

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

bzliz's review

dark reflective 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

3.75

People on booktok give this a hard time which I understand but I don’t think it’s fully justified. Blood & Honey is not as action packed as Serpent & Dove (most of the real action takes place in the last 150ish pages) but it conveys some pretty serious character development that I think will be important going into the third book. 

Lou’s journey is so interesting. She has escaped certain death at the hands of her mother twice now and she’s flirting with the darkness inside her. Even after overhearing the people she loves discussing her behavior and choices, she doesn’t realize what she’s doing and is becoming a pretty unreliable narrator. It takes a major incident (

Spoiler

unintentionally setting Coco on fire

) for her to realize what a slippery slope she’s on and try to turn it around. She’s also accumulated 3 matagots- who are attracted to lost souls- when it’s unusual for someone to attract more than one. Honestly, I want her to gather a whole army of these adorable little shadow messenger spies. 

Reid is also going through it. He’s grappling with the revelation that he’s a witch and the utter self-loathing that comes with that, plus his known parentage, PLUS his grief for the Archbishop who was practically a father to him. He makes a minor attempt to bond with Beau and I can definitely see them building a brotherly relationship despite Beau’s warnings against romanticizing the idea of their father and siblings. Reid also starts taking steps to atone for past actions that he thought were right at the time. He will be the light to balance out Lou’s darkness. 

Coco also got some time to shine and I loved it. The book is titled for her magic. She is the crew’s in with the Dame Rouge and she is one of Lou’s tethers to keep her from descending further. She also finally kisses Ansel and subsequently breaks his heart which leads to a beautiful scene with Lou that really showcases the strength of their bond. I really appreciate the relationship between Lou and Coco; too many fantasy stories don’t maintain F/F relationships once the love interest comes in. 

One tiny little side question I have is: what happened to Bas? Maybe I blinked and missed it but did he survive after the bandits attacked the troupe? Did they just leave him there? I don’t remember any mention of what happened to him at all. 

Discussion of major character death under the spoiler. Don’t read if you don’t want to know and stop scrolling because others have not bothered to hide it. 

Spoiler

Madame Labelle is captive after Reid and Beau break out of their father’s prison but that is not enough to give their mission serious stakes. She’s the oldest member of their crew and Reid still feels resentful toward her for giving him up. To really feel the devastation of Morgane’s reign of terror, someone beloved has to die and that person is Ansel. He was the baby of the group and the most innocent. He’s their little golden retriever and they absolutely have to lose that force of pure goodness to get rid of Morgane.

Over all, I did enjoy this book and I’m looking forward to the next one. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, Gore, and Violence

Minor: Cannibalism

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

---

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

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

---

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. 

---

Content Warnings

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

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

Minor: Animal death

ara02's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Violence, Cursing, and Death

Moderate: Cannibalism, Grief, Genocide, Blood, Kidnapping, and Torture

Minor: Confinement, Child death, and Abandonment

mpbookreviews's review

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Animal death, Physical abuse, Violence, Kidnapping, Body horror, Confinement, Torture, Blood, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Sexual content, Vomit, Cannibalism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Child death, Cursing, and Murder

delaney_de_spain's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Murder, Violence, Vomit, Blood, Cannibalism, and Child death

Minor: Religious bigotry

katvou's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Cannibalism, Kidnapping, and Vomit

queer_bookwyrm's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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

4.0

 4 ⭐ CW: violence, descriptions of blood and gore, blood magic, ingesting of blood, cannablism, self harm, suicide mention, burning alive, descriptions of corpses, torture, sex

"What you are now is not what you've always been, nor is it what you'll always be. You are a snake. She'd your skin if it no longer serves you. Transform into something different. Something better."

Blood and Honey by Shelby Mahurin is the second book in the Serpent and Dove series. I liked this one just as much as Serpent and Dove. I thought there was a nice blend of character moments and plot, but a lot did happen.

We follow up with Lou, Tied, Ansel, Coco, and Madame LaBelle hiding after the Modraniht debacle. We find Lou struggling with the fact that she is losing a little bit if herself every time sacrifices something to magic. She's become reckless and heedless of anyone's concerns. Reid is wallowing in self hatred for most of the book, since he found out he was a witch.

Reid's struggle to accept the magic inside him almost reminds me of a lot closeted Christan gay men who went to conversion therapy. He believes he's not really a witch if he doesn't practice. Sound familiar? It does get a bet annoying how stubborn they both are in this, but they also have some really great moments.

We get to see enemies come together against a common enemy here. We get the Blood witches, (gay) werewolves, and some other supernatural people from a group of traveling players. Claud's character is my favorite in this! He's charming, funny, and weird as all get out. They try to stop Morgan's together, but Murphy's Law was at work (anything that can go wrong will go wrong).

That ending gutted me. I mean, I knew it was going to happen, but it still hurt. And that cliffhanger was just rude. Guess I'll have to get Gods and Monsters soon! 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Death, Torture, and Sexual content

Moderate: Violence, Blood, and Cannibalism

Minor: Suicide