Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Voyage of the Damned

Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White

13 reviews

thereadingbanshee's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

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ribbonquest's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense

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

3.5

More brutal violence than I was expecting and incredibly anime feeling. Everyone represents an animal, Fruits Basket zodiac style, and have different rainbow hair colors. The cast is very diverse, which flips back and forth between contrived and just a sign of how screwed up this world/system of governance is.

The youngest passenger is an adorable six-year-old so if "child on murder boat" raises any red flags for you, look into content warnings or just skip this one.

It's engaging but not for me.

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leandrathetbrzero's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious 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

3.75

12 provinces (if we exclude the 13th exiled beyond the Bandage). 12 heirs blessed with a secret magical ability (but one of them is lying and unblessed). 12 days on a boat journey to pay tribute to the Goddess (and most of them will not make it to their destination).

✓ a rare 50/50 Fantasy Mystery blend!
✓ positive queer, fat & disabled characters
✓ comfy elements: hilarious mc and lovable scooby gang
✓ multiple dead bodies! Woohoo!
✓ thorough world-building and strong mystery plotting

x disappointing romantic twist/reveal
x some 2-d depictions of important characters with little or no on-page appearances

This was such an impressive romp with so many elements I love in both my mysteries AND my fantasies. The murder mystery was a strong A plot, following an immensely likable and hilarious amateur sleuth and unsung hero, Dee of Fish Province. He was strong while being flawed, and I couldn't help but root for him. I'm also a sucker for boat settings, Scooby gang camaraderie, and a high body count where no one is safe! Meanwhile, on the fantasy side, we had a captivating origin story that reminded me a bit of Sky Woman from indigenous tradition, strong world-building, illustrated maps, and important themes about empire, unity, and acceptance. I loved the details added about the separate provinces, their trade and customs, their alliances, and the individual abilities of every province heir.

Elements I was less impressed by include (1) fan fiction/YA-esque humor at times. Don't get me wrong, there were SO many times I was laughing along and charmed by the witty and sharp dialogue, but it also felt overdone sometimes. (2) Two characters were mentioned numerous times through anecdotes and brief flashbacks/memories: Lysander and Ravi. These characters remained 2D to me, and I never felt invested in who they were because I never truly saw them on the page, and when I did, it was so brief/insubstantial. (3) My biggest issue with the narrative was how the author handled the romance between Dee and another character. There was a major reveal/twist in the book that, for me, overall cheapened the entire development of the romance itself. I was really disappointed, and I wish the reveal never happened to be honest. And as it did, Dee needed a stronger, averse reaction to the reveal. The love interest got off way too easy. and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

CW: descriptions of drowning, violence and physical injuries (including severed limbs), dead bodies, self-harm and suicidal ideation

Actual Rating: 3.75 stars
Original Pub Date: 20 August 2024
Reading Format: print + audio

Thank you NetGalley, MIRA and Harlequin Trade Publishing for an E-ARC copy in exchange for this honest review!

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amphibianwitch's review against another edition

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hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

"Voyage of the Damned", o "ese libro que hizo que me enamorase del protagonista en el capítulo 1". Un narrador con una voz y un carisma increíbles. Una historia con muchos giros, con mucho suspense, asesinatos e intrigas. El worbu es genial y los personajes también. Grasshopper es lo mejor del universo. Ah, y todo es muy queer.

Este libro iba para 5 estrellas, disparado. Y a pesar de que lo sigo recomendando muchísimo y de que sigo adorando a Dee, me he desinflado con una revelación del final. No voy a entrar en detalles porque es un spoiler enorme. Solo diré que la forma en que todos los hilos entre las subtramas se conectan y todo cobra sentido está muy bien ligada, las pistas estaban todas ahí, pero eso no significa que tenga que gustarme. Aun así, un libro buenísimo, 4 estrellazas.

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sunshinemoth's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

I find it difficult sometimes to differentiate between "bad" or "flawed" writing choices and writing choices I simply don't like, but seeing as I rate my reads on enjoyment rather than objective quality, I'll be quite honest.
For a debut novel, this was not bad. It kept me engaged, consistently twisting my assumptions of what was really going on down to the final chapters. (Excitingly, SPOILERS:

I was partially right in two of my guesses. One of which being that either Eudora, Ravi, or both were alive and in on the murders. The other guess being an alternative to the first; that Cordelia was the murderer, because a "seemingly innocent" frail girl gone mad with grief is an easy call from 300 pages away.)

However, I have some complaints. One of which being that Ganymedes left me disappointed as a protagonist. I have a strong penchant for "misfit asshole" characters, but as protagonists you also have to either have them grow or at least have their flaws pointed out in the story. Dee's insistence that he was the only one who understood Ravi and being convinced that his attitude toward him was a lie after having not seen him for five years especially irked me, and even worse

that the story proved him right

. He was entertaining at first, but the story became so distracted with the mystery that it forgot to give Dee time to reflect on himself. The most we got were a few moments of him thinking "I guess I don't know this person who I've only spoken to a handful of times in my life as well as I thought I did.", which, yeah, no shit. I empathize with Dee, as anybody who has been made to feel like a lowly outsider would, but ultimately he was mostly just self-centred and was mostly humanized through the six-year-old that was glued to his side for most of the story who

he nearly got killed anyway to literally go commit suicide

.
I promise I'm not normally a cynical reader, but I think it's fair to be put off by every other character spilling their guts to him or telling him that he was a good person when the story spent its first fifth establishing how much they were supposed to hate and distrust him.
Lastly, and this is really more of a personal issue than a writing one (maybe), but the reveal of

Wyatt having been Ravi all along

was not the triumph I think it was supposed to land as. I spent hundreds of pages

falling in love with Wyatt as a character, being happy that Dee stopped clinging to the childhood love he thought he knew, only for him to have been dead all along, with Ravi having lied to Dee, and to the audience the whole time. It devastated me. I was given zero time to mourn the boy who never existed as I was essentially told "oh well, it was Ravi the whole time so the emotions were still real!" as if that was supposed to fix the dissonance between the characters of Ravi and Wyatt in my head. And the fact that I was supposed to forgive Ravi in the last stretch of the book for having been in on the devastation that the plot was centered around felt like an extra slap in the face. Barely any thought was even given to the real Wyatt, only how he died.

Anyways, I know that I've complained a lot in this review, but overall it was a compelling read! The dialogue was well written and the conflict well-paced, if not slow to start. I am a locked tomb fan, and this story has quite a few similarities to it (so many so that I started keeping tally of all the comparisons I could make in my head), so overall I found it entertaining enough to finish in just a few sittings. Unfortunately, the devil is in the details, and the details are where this story falters most, outside of its core murder mystery plot.
(P.S. I want a prequel novella about Leofric and Lysander.)

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thisbookisbananas's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

Ok this was an absolute good time. Voyage of the Damned executed what Gideon the Ninth failed to do for me. This was a gritty, fun isolated closed circle mystery set in a dystopian fantasy setting. The main character,Dee, was lovable and funny. The humor hit like Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone. There was a mini-found-family situation ,which is my catnip. The one qualm I had while reading it is figuring out what age range this book is for. Due to the dystopian setting, the characters trapped on the ship are as young as six and as old as thirty. However, I think I’m going to place Voyage of the Damned in either New Adult or Adult age range. A great read! I look forward to trying more from this author.

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kayshamarie's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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

4.75

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evarinya's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.75

Somehow the most interesting premise managed to end up getting worse chapter by chapter... Similar to the MC, I'm afraid.
I liked trying to figure out the mystery, but then when it was resolved it felt like there was no way a reader (or, well, me) could have actually figured out what happened with the information that was given.
Also there were some really contrived bits I strongly disliked.
At least some scenes were cute and/or funny, though.

Grasshopper is actually so cute/funny!

It was cool to see that there was a bunch of diversity throughout the book, but [heavy spoilers]

that every genderqueer person died at the end left a really stale taste for me. I mean, great, the woman liking women and two of the gay/bi men survived, but the trans man as well as the nonbinary person died in the stupidest ways (imho)

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beckisnotonfire's review against another edition

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adventurous 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? It's complicated

5.0

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inkysplodge's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious 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

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