Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Age of Vice

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

77 reviews

maggiecatherine's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark 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? It's complicated

5.0

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laxm's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

1.0

"Where is this going?" That was my recurring thought as I read Age of Vice. By the time I hit the final chapters, it became clear that the book was going nowhere. TL;DR: Maybe skip this one and wait for glossy, binge-while-multitasking series that it'll inevitably become.

The story kicks off with Ajay, whose introduction hints at a thrilling, outsider-takes-on-the-rich narrative. You expect a gripping tale of disruption, revenge, and moral reckoning. Instead, you get a series of overblown caricatures parading as characters. There’s the entitled billionaire brat reimagining India (yawn), the educated love interest reluctantly buying into said brat’s "vision" (eyeroll), the crusading journalist with an unshakable moral compass (predictable), the one-dimensional bad-guy sidekicks (why?), and the underdog with a tragic backstory that’s neither new nor compelling.

When the story focuses on Ajay, it shows glimmers of what it could have been. His time in prison, his internal struggles, his complicated dynamics with Sunny, Prem, and Neda—these are where the book momentarily finds its footing. But just as you start to care, the narrative yanks you back to yet another flat character or, worse, to Sunil Rastogi (seriously, what even was this character?).The violence in the books crosses into gratuitous territory when Rastogi is introduced. These chapters feel like the literary equivalent of shock-value cinema where Kapoor threw in graphic violence and sexual assault simply because she could. The story would’ve been just as disappointing without these disturbing chapters.

I finished Age of Vice only because I can’t bring myself to abandon books midway and by the end, I hated myself for wasting time I'd never get back.

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heartofoak1's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

2.5

Dark themes, violence, rape, drugs. Hard to stomach.

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amasica's review against another edition

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slow-paced

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

2.25

I want to rate this so much higher but I got so lost in the last 150-200 pages and could not tell you what happened.

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jengoertz's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.5

Started out interesting, quickly became bloated and boring. I did not enjoy the trudge through the second half of the book.

Ajay's story was intriguing and tragic. Neda's story could have been interesting, but it was part rehash, part unnecessary filler. By the time I got to Sunny's chapters, I no longer cared about any of it.

The dialogues were difficult to parse. Several times, i had to go back through half a page track down who said what, which killed any immersion i had in the story.

The whole thing was just frustrating and exhausting.

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