Reviews with content warning for Blood - Las chicas

i for the most part enjoyed this book and read it quickly but it was lacking in parts and i didn’t hugely connect? well written and a really interesting concept, the iconic California 1969 based on Manson murders etc, but i did feel it could have been executed better.

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greatexpectations77's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

The first couples pages of the book were over-the-top flowery language, and I wasn't sure if I was going to stick around, but it calmed down a little bit. I think the strongest parts were the descriptions of the very challenging time of pre-teen/early teenager-dom, when girls are really trying to just figure out how they fit into the world. I did not like the use of "Asiatic" to describe childlike banter - that feels.... not right and insulting to Asian languages. Just really unnecessary. I'm not sure if I'd read this author again because I might just not be able to get on her level of stuffed sentences.

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terrabby's review against another edition

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dark sad tense 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? It's complicated

2.0

No lo he odiado pero me lo habían hypeado mucho y me ha dejado bastante indiferente. El tema sectas me interesa más bien poco y tampoco creo que la parte psicológica que sería la más interesante se desarrolle demasiado. Parece un poco un collage de escenas morbosas con un toque de coming of age que en realidad para mi gusto es la única parte que vale la pena de la novela. Mucha gente dice que no le gusta la voz de Evie pero a mi me ha parecido bien, solo me hubiese gustado que me contase una historia diferente. Las partes de adulta me sobraban muchísimo.

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reading_bear's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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bethybooevans's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

Just didn’t live up to the hype or my personal expectations at all. I felt that the present day Evie and the narrative surrounding Sasha and Julian was very irrelevant and a lots of unnecessary content just to give the comparison between younger Evie and Sasha.
The book would have been more engaging had the focus been on the cult and the facts surrounding it.
However, the gruesome men were portrayed well and Evie’s relationship with Susanne was intriguing.

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sammiesshelf's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

2.0

This book fell incredibly flat for me. I was excited by the premise of a Manson-esque cult story, and the cover caught my eye, but I was greatly disappointed. One thing I believe contributed greatly to this was the perspective the story is told from. The narrator is Evie Boyd, a girl who spent the summer leading up to the murders with the cult. She was 14 at the time. However, when she is telling the story, she is somewhere in her mid to late fifties from what I gathered, so the tone you are left with is jaded and depressing. It seems as if her life sort of peaked that summer, so her whole vibe is just sad and lonely. This makes it so that you lose a lot of the illusion of the cult in the beginning. Immediately, Evie points out the faults at the ranch, even though she didn't pay much mind to them at the time. For me, this made it feel like I was just reading about a bunch of dirty (like literally don't bathe) scammers the whole time, instead of almost experiencing the way they use their charisma and "message" to pull people in. I think much of what I expect a cult book to be is sort of through the eyes of someone falling for the trap, not someone who escaped and is recounting it forty years later.

Additionally, there was a weird story going on in the present tense, which felt completely unnecessary. I think the author was going for some sort of parallel with the story of the cult, but it didn't really work and just made the book harder to get through.

Overall, the book dragged terribly and was very easy for me to put down. The only time I found myself reading more than thirty pages at a time was when I finally said "Oh my god I want to get this over with." An enticing concept, but sadly a poor execution.

Content Warnings

mariaviola's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-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

4.0

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