Reviews tagging 'Death'

One for My Enemy by Olivie Blake

58 reviews

bookbelle5_17's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-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

4.5

Review of One for my Enemy

By: Olivie Blake

Two witch families, both alike in magic, in dangerous Manhattan we lay our scene. From ancient rivalry, results a new war for power where wicked deals make wicked hands unclean. From forth the heirs of these two witches, two pairs of rivaled lovers are forced to make a sacrifice.

This is a paranormal retelling of Romeo and Juliet that was sexy and exciting as the next generation must bear the burden of their parent’s greed. Blake creates several characters that each have their own personalities, but because Blake only wanted to focus certain a lot of the other characters suffered lack of development. The romances were enjoyable to read, and the sexy times aren’t two graphic. Sasha was my favorite of the sisters. I was disappointed by the Fae, Byrn, who was introduced as someone playing both sides. He is implied as half human and half Fae, but he came as a weak and passive character, just sassy. He doesn’t have much power, and the witches have more power that he covets. I know the author wanted to focus on the witches being the dangerous ones, but I guess I’m used to Fae having more power than humans. There is drug use with characters selling drug that causes hallucinations and puts you in euphoric state of mind. There is also violence, because this is a mafic type of story but with witches and magic. I liked the references to Russian mythology and fairytales combined with the retelling of the famous Shakespeare play. There’s a lot of clever ways Blake pays homage to the original Shakespeare play, but if you’ve never read or seen Romeo and Juliet you can still enjoy this story.

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laur_astor's review

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Absolutely nothing was happening except characters

getting killed and brought back to life a ridiculous number of times

and I just couldn’t take it anymore.

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applejuiceinabox's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-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

easy to get into but dragged in the last couple acts

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abronstein's review against another edition

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emotional

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I’ve always liked Blake’s writing but there was some back and forth

life and death moments

that had me at the edge of my seat and not trusting of anything the characters are doing.

Personally not my top Blake book, but it was still good.

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memoirsofabooklover's review against another edition

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mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

i liked the idea of the book, and i liked some of the characters, it was an interesting take in romeo and juliet. my only issues were:
1. i wasn’t a fan of the narrator of the audiobook and
2. there wasn’t much plot, it was just a lot of dialog that wasn’t going anywhere
that being said there were some very poetic moments in the author’s writing. overall i liked it

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kwthor's review against another edition

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

4.0

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erinreadsbooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense 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

4.25

What a fantastic roller coaster of a book. The plot drove relentlessly forward, the main cast of characters were clearly outlined from the beginning but were filled in as the story progressed, and the foreboding air of tragedy hung above the whole time but didn’t fall predictably. It really did feel like reading a tragic play; the focus was entirely on the characters and their relationships and histories and the worldbuilding really only consisted of “vaguely moody New York City but with some witchcraft”. I didn’t mind the sparse setting details seeing as the plot was so active I never felt bored. The stakes were high and the tensions were higher and I enjoyed watching things fall apart and get rebuilt as everything spiraled into tragedy.

Read if you like dramatic tragedies with both poetic speeches and also realistic dialogue.

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readbyjaimes's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

2.75

I read this a few weeks ago and remember like two things that happened lol

But in all honesty, this book felt really lackluster for me. The romance was really lacking, especially since this was a Romeo and Juliet retelling. I also didn't care that much about any of the characters. I honestly found the other sisters wayyyy more interesting than Masha or Sasha. It was also soooo slow. I was sitting there waiting for something to actually happen. It was so disappointing though because once something did happen I felt like I had waited so long for it that I didn't care anymore. I don't know if I was just in a slump or what but I was so excited for this and I was so done with it about halfway through. I appreciated the aesthetic of the book though and that was fun.

I read MoD by Olivie first and then tried to read TAS, dnf'd it and then read this. I think Olivie might be a one-hit-wonder author for me.

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eatallthestars's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

I would rate higher but it just didn't have that 'spark' for my personal taste of books. Absolutely fantastic book for anyone a fan of Romeo&Juliet rewrites.

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gabi_715's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

3.75

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