Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Blood & Honey by Shelby Mahurin

30 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

lmmw230494's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Violence, Religious bigotry, and Murder

tallyp's review

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Torture, Gore, Stalking, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Death of parent, Cursing, Child death, Blood, Religious bigotry, Body horror, and Violence

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

onemamareads's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Read my full review here: https://onemamassummer.weebly.com/book-reviews/blood-honey

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Body horror, Child death, Death, Murder, Xenophobia, War, Religious bigotry, Blood, Confinement, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Genocide, Gore, and Grief

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

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

mariekew's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Blood

Minor: Vomit

koistyfishy's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

2.0

I did. not. like. this. book.

This book starts off immediately after the first book ends. From page one it’s tense, threatening, there is action, and stuff going on. But none of this is grasping and it’s feels like the entirety of the book we are just trudging through the trenches to get through to the next book.

I was under the expectation that book two would go more into explaining the vague magic system, but besides the mention of “magic take balance” it’s not really elaborated on at all and I still don’t know how it works!

I did not like the split POV in this book. In book 1 because of the main distinction between Lou and Reid you could easily determine who’s head and POV you were in. This book muddled the lines of internal monologue. They blurred together and often times I had to reread sentences because I was unsure if the chapter was from Lou or Reid’s perspective.

I also have no idea what the actual fuck was going on with their relationship in this book. I really wish sometimes that I had the ability to knock some sense into characters. It bothered me at the start that these two who didn’t know each other really long are this devoted and obsessed with each other… it almost borders on “instant lovey/infatuation vibes” and that type of love does not resonate with me at all! I missed the sassy banter between the two from book one… then a third into the book some sick twist happens and for basically the rest of the book these two basically despise each other due to their judgemental and selfish thoughts and ideals. It’s immature and annoying and the animosity between the two drove me insane.

By page 150 I was wishing for this torture to be over… I need a break before starting book 3 cause I don’t think I can step right into it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Torture

Moderate: Child death, Death, and Murder