ladythana's review
- 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
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Classism and Blood
Minor: Racism, Murder, Death of parent, Death, Transphobia, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Colonisation, Lesbophobia, Sexual content, Slavery, and Body horror
jbpalumbo's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Blood, Terminal illness, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Death of parent and Stalking
Minor: Colonisation, Transphobia, Slavery, Excrement, and Classism
Given that this book is about confronting a lack of agency and aggressively claiming space and happiness that the patriarchy denies, a number of these difficult topics are challenged. There’s also a bit about food turning to maggots in someone’s mouth that is not for the squeamish.hrtlss_grl's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Graphic: Death of parent, Medical trauma, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Animal death, Blood, Cursing, and Violence
Moderate: Abandonment, Cursing, Misogyny, Blood, Animal death, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Violence, Child abuse, Bullying, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, Death of parent, Murder, Racism, and Stalking
hailstorm3812's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Murder, and Sexism
Minor: Death of parent, Animal death, Blood, and Homophobia
atlastheninth's review
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Blood, Animal death, and Death
Moderate: Sexual content and Sexual harassment
Minor: Death of parent
displacedcactus's review
- 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
In the case of Mortal Follies, my issues with the book can be summed up in three points:
1. It's incredibly slow-paced and repetitive, and could have been tightened up by about 20-30%.
2. It wants to be light-hearted but also involves sacrificing animals to old gods.
3. Having Robin Goodfellow narrate the story from a distance would be GREAT in a short story or novella! He's an entertaining narrator! But having him narrate a full-length (slightly over-long) romance novel was a poor choice, IMHO, because he puts a real distance between the reader and the main characters. We never truly know what they are thinking or feeling, which makes it hard to buy the romance.
Btw, this distance also extends to the love scenes. Very low spice level here.
It does get points for depicting the fae folk in a way more in line with traditional lore than with the current genre tropes of smexy faeries.
Moderate: Blood, Animal death, Sexual content, and Terminal illness
yourbookishbff's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Murder, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Cursing
Moderate: Blood, Sexual content, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Lesbophobia
aileron's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, Murder, Animal death, and Blood
Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, Gore, and Medical content
Minor: Slavery, Terminal illness, Classism, and Racism
luckylulureads's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Moderate: Cursing, Animal death, and Animal cruelty
Minor: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Rape, Sexual content, Colonisation, Grief, Homophobia, Blood, Abandonment, Death, Murder, Kidnapping, Sexual harassment, and Transphobia
brontesauruses's review against another edition
- 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
Ok, so before I start the actual review: please take a minute to look at the cover. It's so pink, I love it. 💕
Did you look at it? Ok good.
As for the book itself, it's so much fun. It's queer and silly and told in a way that I ended up really enjoying. Our omniscient narrator is a character in their own right: Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow aka Stanley Tucci* in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)), who has been kicked out by Oberon, and now has to find a way to, you know, pay for food. The tone is very chatty. At times it felt like the chattiness was at the expense of pushing the story along, and it took me a couple chapters to get into it (it might even have been worse towards the beginning), but in the end I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if it had been told differently.
If
Idk that I have any readalikes per se, but I do think that if you like Emily Wilde you might like this one (and vice versa). Very different flavors of Faerie Nonsense, but yeah. Divine Rivals also maybe.
One quick bit of content warning: the Old Gods are still there causing problems, so there are three whole animal sacrifices in this one, each one more...well-described than the last. Lots of blood.
Also, there was a bit of virulent transphobia that was immediately challenged by the narrative and one of the main characters. OOF, though. Very jarring.
*I'm sure the audiobook narrator is very good, but as I was reading, I couldn't help wishing that they'd gotten my man Stanley in on this.
Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Medical content, Transphobia, and Violence
Minor: Death, Abandonment, Death of parent, Racism, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, and Slavery