Reviews with content warning for Violence - Elatsoe

I loved this story! Elatsoe is a beautiful story about the family, stories and friendship. The book tells a story about finding your own strenght and your own roots and respect the ones before you. This book is magical and mysterious.

Great representation! Asexual main character, many native american characters!

Pure magic!

Content Warnings

hdcamp's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

I loved this little urban fantasy! It's too overtly magical to be just magical realism, but it's treated as a normal part of life in much the same way. It's chock full of vampires, wizards, and magical powers. Ellie is a great narrator too - she's a little dry, and very funny, but she's also incredibly heartfelt. Her sense of right and wrong is stronger than many contemporary protagonists, and she shows a degree of selflessness and courage that was really nice to see. Maybe her wisdom comes as a result of her deep connection to her family - not only to her parents and cousin, but to her six-great grandmother, from whom she inherited her own powers.

Dude

I thought we were safe having the dog already dead, but the ending scared the HECK out of me, no thank you!

Luckily everything ended up fine but for a moment I was quite displeased.

My brain is boring today. I liked this, I liked the writing, I liked the fantastical elements. There were several moments that made me chuckle. Maybe it's because I read this as my "at work" read, and it took me like 3 months to read, but I don't have much to say 😔

"Last season, we sat three to a seat on the bus to Dallas," Jess added. "By the end of the trip, I was in Martia's lap."
"Good times," Martia said. "Until my legs fell asleep. How do mall Santas do it?"

*Okay, but the bit about how indigenous people can kill vampires by verbally claiming the land was pretty metal.

Content Warnings

bohemianhermit04's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

linblythe_pub22's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

Content Warnings

kfmcf's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

This is more magical realism than fantasy - which is absolutely fine, but for folks going into this expecting pure fantasy, they may feel a bit unsatisfied.

Elatsoe is a great POV character. She's spunky and funny and caring and her relationship with her family is entertaining and charming. She was absolutely my favorite part of the book along with the descriptions of her magic and the world around her.

Her world is the same as ours but with magic and magic-folk being known entities. I think I was hoping for a little bit more magic and less murder mystery, but that's from going in mostly blind. I think the mystery itself was still handled-well, there were some twists and turns without it being a shock or jump scare

(you know who it is from pretty early on along with Elatsoe's suspicions. But the reveal of the Doctor's secret was interesting without it being a major twist. Not even mystery needs to be mind blowing, just believable and fascinating)

There were a few pacing issues where I think things could have moved with a bit more agency, and maybe a few questions that never really got answered, but the last half of the book was quite speedy. I hope to see more from this author and more works of fiction from indigenous authors!

Content Warnings

amberinpieces's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

laurenexploresbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? No

5.0

Content Warnings

klbreyfogle's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

Generally good! I love a canon ace character, and Ellie was fun to follow (plus ghost Kirby was a delight). The integration of Lipan Apache beliefs was really cool, especially how they were used to solve the crime and resolve the conflict at the end!

It’s definitely YA, and although Ellie is meant to be 17 she feels a little younger than that. The reason I didn’t rate it higher is that I think I’m a little older than the target audience, and portions of the characters and dialogue didn’t really resonate because of that.

Content Warnings

More...