Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Lost Girls by Sonia Hartl

14 reviews

zoepagereader's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I didn’t expect this book to be as heavy as it was. I thought it was just going to be a funny vampire story, not one with three immortal girls dealing with centuries of trauma and a toxic ex. Granted, it was still great, it just wasn’t what I expected at all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Grief, Blood, Toxic relationship, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Violence, Genocide, and Body horror

sallytiffany's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Took me a long time since I don’t listen to audio books much but incredibly well done. I was enamored the entire time. Have never loved a vampire story more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Death, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Drug use, Sexual content, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Murder, and Physical abuse

behindherpages's review against another edition

funny medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Death of parent, Abandonment, Gore, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Grief

mx_virg's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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

I loved the premise and really wanted to like this book. And the base elements are there. I liked the characters, the way they come together, how the plot progresses. I like that a big part of the book focuses on female friendships. I enjoyed reading it, but I don't think much will stick with me for long.

The world building is really lacking here. How can vampires just carelessly go through the world, killing people left and right, in this day and age? The number of people they kill to feed on isn't small, and yet it's never really a concern. Nothing really is, aside from the main villain. We're given just enough to understand why things have to happen the way they do, nothing more. The vampire thing feels more like a b-plot, we're not given enough info and I wasn't that invested or interested when vampiry stuff happened as a result.

The romance started out cute, but became bland from the half-way point. And even though I liked the ending, the twists felt unnecessary and created if not plot holes, at least more questions that we won't get answers to (because we're given so little info to begin with). The writing didn't help. It wasn't bad, but didn't pull me in either.

So yeah, it's a "meh" read for me, but one I still enjoyed. I'd love to read a book on how our heroines carve a life for themselves, together, from here on out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Death, Violence, Blood, Gore, Emotional abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Gaslighting, Grief, Sexism, Abandonment, Body horror, and Physical abuse

Minor: Animal cruelty, Dementia, Alcohol, Child death, Grief, Bullying, Confinement, Death of parent, and Misogyny

longlost's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.0

mmm. i really wanted to like this book. like many other reviewers i was sold on the Sapphic Vampire Revenge Story premise and while there were parts of the book that really spoke to me and made me feel like it was worth reading, the parts that bothered me were.... a bit too Much to gloss over in favour of what i did like about it. 

the good: hartl's brand of dark humour used to tell this story made it feel very engaging to me, but that's very much personal taste. i liked the characters - the core vampire trio (later quartet) were easy to love for their quirks and i found what we did learn about their backstories and histories to be genuinely interesting and at times heartbreaking. holly's issues w/ her mother also really spoke to me when they did become front and centre, and i liked

the resolution with her mother in their final scene together.

ive never really been that invested in vampire stories so im going into this world with the basics of vampire knowledge, but i really enjoyed the work hartl put into worldbuilding regarding the vampire lore. when i picked up the book to continue reading i was as much interested in seeing where the characters would go next as in how the world and the rules behind vampirism would be unraveled. which sucks because the stuff im going to talk about next really ruined whatever good aspects those parts had.

the bad (and the Ugly): so. the entire premise of the book is the three girls who were coerced by the main villain - a vampire creep who preys on vulnerable, isolated teenagers - teaming up to kill him so he can't ensnare anymore victims. and then we spend the entire book developing a romance between holly and parker of which the inherent weirdness of it is never really acknowledged ? like yea, we know that holly genuinely cares because we're reading things from her point of view and there's a lot of emphasis on how being Turned pauses you at that point in time meaning that holly is Technically still 16 but. it is just, not that simple ? she's been existing for like 30 years and parker is. a teenager. maybe there could have been ways to approach it well but here it just felt.... extremely brushed over despite a major plot point of the story being how the villain did similar things to the main character & her friends. the romance felt kinda bland too but tbf i was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until the out of nowhere underage sex scene which very nearly made the book a DNF for me but there wasnt much of the story left at that point and i wanted to keep to my rule about having read a book in full before writing an in-depth review like this and i felt like these issues were glaring enough that they needed to be discussed in context of the story which is. as explained, never really addressed by the author other than holly being like "oh no if we date parker will eventually grow old and die" which. doesn't even begin to address the juxtaposition between the entire revenge plot and holly and parker's relationship. the overall ending seems to be contentious from reading other reviews here but tbh at that point id disengaged emotionally so i dont have any real thoughts on that. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Death, Gore, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Sexism, Abandonment, Dementia, Alcohol, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Death of parent, and Sexual content

Minor: Confinement, Mass/school shootings, Gun violence, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

questingnotcoasting's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.5

This was a fun concept and while I did enjoy a lot of it, it didn't completely succeed for me. I think the main issue was that it was too fast-paced and I never really got attached to the characters. They're very focused on their past regrets and what it means to be a lost girl, which was still interesting to read about but overall it wasn't quite as fun as I was expecting. I didn't feel like Holly and Parker had enough on page interactions for me to root for their romance and also there's the age difference vampire-human issue which always had the potential to be a bit iffy. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Grief

kay_w's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Blood, Toxic friendship, Torture, Physical abuse, Murder, Gore, Grief, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Dementia, Abandonment, Confinement, Death of parent, and Stalking

lipstickitotheman's review against another edition

adventurous funny fast-paced

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

3.5

It was fun! I liked it! I wasn't riveted. Nice emotional twist at the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, Violence, Body horror, Bullying, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Child abuse, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Medical content, Sexual content, and Dementia

annieisawesome's review

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

1.5

The basic plot line was interesting. It felt badly executed. The writing felt very bad fan fiction-y. Also a lot of needless details. Definitely wouldn’t read again. I only finished it because it was short. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Gaslighting, Animal cruelty, Grief, Misogyny, Alcohol, Animal death, and Blood

sssssoup's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective fast-paced

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

0.25

I’ve been looking forward to reading this book for months, and more than anything, I found it incredibly disappointing. When I first heard about it, the combination of ideas sounded like it would be really interesting and fun to read, but I found everything about it lacking.

The plot itself was fine, and I was okay with the resolution in the end, but there were a lot of glaring issues related to the vampire lore that took away from my enjoyment of the story.

Why did nobody in the town seem to care about all the murders? The vampires killed at least fifteen or twenty people during the story, which spanned less than a month. I know it’s fiction, so they can take some liberties when it comes to logic, but this was so glaring that I wasn’t willing to overlook it. Also, I know Holly was nowhere near as bad as Elton, but she still had a significant age gap with Parker, and I found it odd that that was never addressed.

The characters were also not very interesting. Despite all their trauma and the author’s attempts to make them sympathetic, I didn’t really feel bad for any of them. They seemed boring and shallow, and the fact that they all only got one distinct personality trait made them run together in my mind. 

Overall, I like the ideas present in the story, but the execution was lackluster and forgettable at best.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Abandonment, Misogyny, Sexism, Dementia, Sexual harassment, Bullying, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Sexual content, and Fire/Fire injury