Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

Pestilence by Laura Thalassa

5 reviews

midnightmoon_dreamer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

Good story just kept questioning the reasoning behind so many things (like really Sara?). Also not much was explained plot wise. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Pregnancy

abicaro17's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I have mixed feelings about this book. This is a dark romance about Sara, a firefighter, and Pestilence, a horseman of the apocalypse. Sara is tasked by her squad to stay behind and kill Pestilence to prevent the spread of the Plague. When this fails, Pestilence kidnaps her and keeps her prisoner. The concept of this book is cool. Falling in love with a physical manifestation of a biblical plague? Awesome! The issue is the execution. Sara is a little young for me, their "romance" feels a little forced, and Pestilence knowing nothing about humans feels wrong. It wasn't bad at all just a little off for me. I will probably eventually read War and the sequels but not now. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

queerloras's review

adventurous dark tense 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

3.25

Can definitely tell its the first book in the series as author is still finding her stride.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

katbenimble's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

1.25

I do not even know where to begin with this 😂 it was so bad.  The plot holes are big enough for Tricksy to ride through.  The graphic violence was almost too much for me. The MCs are both idiots. The spice started like...75% through the book. The end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Sexual content

sarrie's review against another edition

dark funny sad tense fast-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

3.0

 

Pestilence by Laura Thalassa is everywhere if you spend a lot of time on the Fantasy Romance part of the bookish internet - or it was at one point and now it has just seeped into the collective consciousness there. It’s getting it’s traditional release this year and I grabbed a copy to try out (both an eArc and the physical edition at my local Barnes & Noble). And I can’t quite get my head around it. 

The premise is simple enough. The four Horseman arrived on Earth some years ago, announcing our demise, then disappeared. The first of the Horseman has awoken, and it’s Pestilence who is slowly riding around the world and sickening and destroying the populace. Sara Burns (a hilarious name considering she’s a firefighter) takes it upon herself to attempt to kill Pestilence. Then ends up paying the price. 

So here is where my first BIG problem with this comes. Sara does indeed manage to kill him, burns him to death in fact and when he gets back up (he’s a Horseman of the Apocalypse, of course you can’t kill him) he’s very angry. In an interesting twist, he can feel all the pain and agony of death and all that it does to his body but he never truly dies. So he decides to keep her captive and punish her. From there he does many things to her. Shoots her, drags her by the wrists behind his horse, verbally abuses her, etc. As this is a romance eventually he comes around and she ‘brings out his humanity and gives him hope’ - the usual. But the things he does prior to this, it’s a LOT. 

There is also the weirdly added chunk of travel in which Sara constantly tends to those who are dying from his plague he spreads just by being somewhere. We read about these people dying, including small children, and his simple refusal to do anything. If the ultimate end game was for us to like Pestilence it didn’t happen for me. The man or whatever he is because at one point he tells her he’s is just what his name says - a walking cloud of disease? Is simply not appealing. It missed me. No thank you. 

And yet I finished it. I cannot tell you why. I don’t think I recommend this one, but the writing just kept me going and I am just so convinced there has to be something more in the later books. I want the twist to be that these men are not what they seem. Or they are but in a way that makes sense for them to feel the pain they do? 

I genuinely don’t know who I’d recommend this too. It’s not romantic, it’s sad then funny then so melodramatic. It has the Happily Ever After all romances do. She ends up sleeping with the personification of a cloud of disease and it’s implied they have children by the end when War appears - but I also can’t tell you I’m not going to read the next one. 

If you do pick it up… just don’t think to hard about it. Like the boils his plague leaves behind it’s peppered with red flags and holes but it was fun and bingeable. 

2 warm baths with a disease cloud watching you (and yes. that line felt like kink shaming in the book) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Bullying, Kidnapping, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Stalking