Reviews with content warning for Blood - Middlegame

Genre-defying, occasionally confusing, utterly engaging. I had trouble putting this down, even while I'm muttering "wtf is happening" as I'm reading. McGuire is a talented world-builder and writer and this book is up to her usual standard. I adore Dodger and wanted to know so much more about Erin. Great read.

(Side note: while I placed this in the fairytales and flights of fancy category, it's really more like sci-fi fantasy, but also neither of those. It's hard to describe. As I mentioned, genre-defying.)

Switched to 5 stars in 2022 upon re-reading.

Content Warnings

diarythebookwyrm's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense 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

Once again, Seanan McGuire proves why she’s one of my favorite authors to date. This has the same kind of evocative and lyrical prose as her writing as Mira Grant, but the same kind of wild things in the real world feel of the Toby Daye series. I don’t know what it is about Seanan and Berkeley, but she really needs to stop putting that poor city through fantasy nonsense. I’m fascinated by this world and excited for the next book.

Content Warnings

bethsiekierawalker's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

oliverreeds's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

no idea what happened. i loved every second

Content Warnings

mfrank's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.0

I love Seanan McGuire and her writing so much! I was so happy to read this and it made me happy to go through it! I loved Roger and Dodger so much. They felt very real to me. I think Seanan McGuire is so great at creating characters. For me, the only reason that this was four stars instead of five stars is the climax scenes. I think Seanan McGuire is great at creating characters and building narrative tension, but I've noticed in a few of her books that I've read that the climax sometimes fails to deliver on that tension.

I really hated the fake-out climax. It felt like we gained nothing from that. They would have manifested without that. And the fact that we thought both Leigh and Erin died and then neither of them died made me so upset. Like, what was the point of that scene if it accomplished literally nothing for them. Also, the face that Erin then actually died made me so upset. It felt a bit weird too. Like, that Erin was just too broken to survive without her brother? It felt off to the message about sibling love. Especially, that Erin basically chose to kill herself, sort of? I know she didn't literally, but it felt at the end like she was making the choice to die rather than that Reed actually killed her. Just those last like 30 pages felt weird overall.

Despite those few issues I had with the book, I loved the overall story enough to sort of make up for those moments where I didn't.

Content Warnings

vaxis's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.75

I sometimes wonder if I'm just too dense or if I missed something with Seanan's world building, or if the reason I don't fully feel like I understand what's happening is how it's been explained. This was sometimes an issue, but not too much.

There's a heavy emphasis on their headspace and how they come to the decisions they make. There's some excellent prose.

Content Warnings

More...