Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

The Book of M by Peng Shepherd

5 reviews

dev921's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, War, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Infidelity, Medical content, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, Confinement, Cursing, and Hate crime

evilwizard's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• 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

5.0

This book is a great exploration of love (romantic, platonic, and familial), loss, and identity. Though set in a gritty post-apocalyptic world, it is full of magic and emotion and hope. Also, I don't want to give to much away, but the ending really resonated with me as a trans person. Ms. Shepard thank you so much for feeding us <3

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Confinement, Death, Dementia, Grief, Gun violence, Medical content, and War

Moderate: Car accident, Cursing, Infidelity, and Suicide

Minor: Death of parent and Sexual content

quirkyaquarian's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Dementia, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Violence

Moderate: Murder, Medical trauma, Hate crime, Grief, and Gore

Minor: Animal death, Confinement, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Religious bigotry, and Vomit

kaywaters's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Kidnapping, and Murder

fromjuliereads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I think this was a case of "it's not you, it's me." 
I honestly just found this book kind of frustrating and left it feeling more confused than when I started - which it just feels like that is not the goal of reading a book... 
I loved the idea that it was a dystopian world and some of the twists were well done, but there were just too many things that didn't work for me. 
I didn't like the characters which makes it really REALLY hard when it's a dystopian... I didn't care if they lived... and they were definitely not developed enough for me. There are 3 main characters whose basic trait is that they are constantly talking about or to someone else. You don't actually learn a lot about the characters themselves. It was frustrating to keep feeling like I didn't care if they lived or died - I should be rooting for dystopian characters to survive!!!! 

I think my biggest issue though were the holes in the story. A lot are spoilery, so I will hide them for now.

Spoiler

There is never any explanation for why the shadows disappear and why that gives humans magic? It made absolutely no sense. And the magic was only seen used as a convenience to get characters out of sticky situations... which I hated. Not to mention, there were no rules for this magic system at all. The only rule is if you use magic then you forget something... that's it. I like magic to have some basis of rules.

 

I think this book had a lot more potential but so many things fell short. Not to mention, the POVs and writing just didn't flow for me. It felt really choppy from one scene to another. I almost dnfed this book, but I wanted to see if it got better. And the ending was so... meh. 
Hopefully you enjoy more than me!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, and Vomit