Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Мэйфейрские ведьмы by Anne Rice, Anne Rice

3 reviews

cuteasamuntin's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

I’m not sure I particularly liked this book. It isn’t a particularly fun or nice read, but I can already tell that it’s going to really stick with me. While it’s slow enough that I was at times impatient for Rice to get on with it, the narrative was still very compelling.

I really enjoyed the family chronology and learning more about the Talamasca. My favorite parts were 1) the deep and pure expressions of familial and romantic love dappled throughout an otherwise grim and haunting story and 2) Michael

in a joyous frenzy over restoring the house, to the point that I was hanging onto every word about his historically accurate and thoughtful renovations

, but the latter is probably just a hazard of my day job.

Funnily enough, I just didn’t care at all about the spirit Lasher, to the point that I found myself actively bored when

he is finally present in the narrative and begins interacting directly with Rowan

. I think this may have been a stronger story without that aspect being so explicitly present. This may, of course, be in part to already knowing the general principles of how spirits/“demons” work in the Anne Rice universe due to being a dedicated admirer of Maharat and her Great Family™ from The Vampire Chronicles. 

For audiobook listeners, the talented Kate Reading really makes this heavy tome a lot less of a slog. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Medical content, Dementia, Murder, and Classism

Minor: Body shaming, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Dementia, Kidnapping, Car accident, Abortion, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, and Colonisation

stacylaughs's review against another edition

challenging dark sad 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? No

3.25

This book is so long! It could easily be three books, but a lot of it is written about the past, which all makes sense at the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Rape, and Sexual content

Moderate: Violence, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy

mispaintedlady's review against another edition

I was enjoying this story until I got to the double whammy of romanticized  slavery and erotic  incest between father and daughter. I was truly disgusted at how Anne Rice wrote about slavery. Using the excuse of a character in the past and their journals, Rice glorified  slave owners simply because they  were Mayfair Witches and white washed the traumatic history of an enslaved person’s kidnapped life. 

The incest just kept going even up until the end of the book. Glad I just skipped ahead to find out the ending wasn’t worth reading the whole book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Murder, and Colonisation

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Infidelity, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Medical content, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail