Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

102 reviews

itsheyfay's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Gun violence, Vomit, and Stalking

Minor: Child death, Drug use, Racism, Slavery, and Suicide attempt

dearhaleynicole's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I LOVED this sequel to Ninth House! The eerie setting was still there but Leigh really built on what she did with the first book. I thought the stakes were there and big fan of more Darlington in this book. For obvious reasons if you read Ninth House. 

Had no idea there was set to be a sequel  but that makes me so happy because I need more!! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal death, Racism, and Sexual assault

rainyghost's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Racism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Vomit, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

saucy_bookdragon's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.0

Hell Bent is an absolutely wild sequel to Ninth House, so much so there's literally a glowing demon dick and its just a minor thing. It's not even for smut its just there!

In this sequel, the crew is trying to figure out how to get into hell. Its an overall improvement on the first book! Its got a more intriguing and unhinged plot, Alex and the side characters have a lot more personality and development, and this is more solidly dark academia (especially with a focus on mythology and theology, we also finally find out what Alex is majoring in it's English). And where I found Ninth House to have inconsistent pacing and a disappointing answer to the mystery, I was m0re engaged with Hell Bent and the ending had me gagged!

Though I do wish this had addressed some of the other problems from book one. In particular, Alex still has some stereotypes tied to her Latina identity and Hellie is still not a character outside of Alex's own trauma. Though this book doesn't make these problems worse, it could have improved them.

Also Alex and Dawes are definitely in love I don't care if Darlington is also in love with Alex and probably endgame Dawes has more chemistry.

TWs: this book is about the same level of triggering as the first one, a little less so actually since there isn't any on page sexual assault. That said, there is a scene with animal death (a rabbit) that was gory and difficult to read. Other TWs are violence, gore, death, horror elements, murder, drug use, mentions of racism including slavery and police brutality, misogyny, spiders. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, and Murder

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, and Racism

Minor: Sexual assault

wemilyebb's review against another edition

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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Racism and Slavery

joensign's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, and Sexual violence

Minor: Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Abandonment

katemarie99's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Was considering a 4.5 at first but no -- it deserves the whole five. That destroyed me 🙃🙃🙃

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Gore, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Blood, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, and Sexual harassment

laurenzokro's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-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

3.0

Conflicted on what to rate this one, but overall I can say I enjoyed it. It definitely was an easier read than the first book given that the world building was out of the way - which made for a more gratifying reading experience. That being said, there was a lot that still confounded me - making for a pretty bumpy first 3/4 of the book, and a pretty solid last 1/4 of the book.

I think this book’s primary strength is in its ability to capture intense emotion and explore deep rooted histories/traumas, both of which helped to construct a very visceral reading experience. However, there were too many instances where the tone of a given scene would do a complete 180 - oftentimes throwing your focus off entirely, Additionally, while there were lots of intense and interesting moments, it felt as though there were too many ideas being crammed into the one book -

from the reintroduction of Darlington’s parents to their deaths pretty quickly after their introduction, to Michelle being a double agent, to Mercy for some reason now being part of the squad? It just felt like so much of it, frankly, didn’t make sense. Especially the ending - why have them go through all of that, closing off the passage between world only for it to suddenly still be open anyways?

All in all, good story and great investigation of the core casts’ character arcs, but definitely tried to take on a bit too much.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Racism, Vomit, and Police brutality

Minor: Gun violence, Suicide attempt, and Sexual harassment

adrienreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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

One of my favorite Bardugo books so far - incredible read, I loved it more than the first in its series. 

This book is dark, but if the first book was too explicit/intense for you, this one definitely felt "lighter", more-or-less. Still dark and horrific, but there was far less (on-screen at least) sexual violence, and overall I had a much easier time with this one. Again, still not "light reading" by any means, but worth noting. 

If you've loved Bardugo's other books, this one scratches that same itch, and more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Child death, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Misogyny, Racism, and Slavery

whatevertheysay's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Gore

Moderate: Racism

Minor: Sexism