Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight by Caroline Peckham, Susanne Valenti

7 reviews

kat1105's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

dkgreads's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-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

4.0

Maybe I’m just tired of all the pain and heartache and Lionel and the Shadow B*tch winning. Maybe I’m beyond ready for Seth and Caleb to use their f*cking words. Maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t realize that this book was a whopping 1200 freaking pages long when I started it. Whatever the reason, this book DRAGGED for me. I mean, it took me over a week to read it for crying out loud. But, speaking of crying, it still had the power to make my face leak for the first 130 pages straight. And let’s not even talk about Chapter 73 😭😭😭. Despite the excessive length and what felt like copious amounts of filler, I’m still invested up to my eyeballs. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood, War, and Injury/Injury detail

torij2000's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, and War

_alyssar_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

2.75

I’m so confused.  This book dragged on, and almost went on my DNF list - which is extremely rare, and especially since I actually want to know how everything turns out for these characters.  

The story has been building and building over the first 7 books and then randomly in the last 10-15% of book 8, a bunch of loose ends get tied up, only for the whole story to unravel again in the last couple of chapters and leave us on a weird cliffhanger. Not only that, but the next two books in the series are apparently backtracks from different perspectives - the next one says it’s a retelling of the first book from the Heirs’ POV, and the currently final book in the series (book 10) says it’s a retelling from the POV of those that have passed.   So we’ll be left on this cliffhanger with no foreseeable ending through at least two more books before we can pick up and go again. 

The first few books really sucked me in, but the story is now spiraling wildly out of control with no ending in sight - pretty disappointed, as I’m now invested in this story through the first several books, but after book 8, I’m not sure I want to continue, despite still wanting to see how things turn out.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

emgrace93's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment

Language and Smut

charhollyx's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny sad tense slow-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? Yes

4.5

A slow start, 50%-98% was exceptional and a definite five star read, but the last two chapters and the very slow start brought it down to a 4.5.
I love this world and the surprises of this book really had me squealing with excitement, but the book also had me disliking characters like Seth and Tory all over again and their development seemed to decline? 

Darius coming back was the highlight of the book, with surprises from Geraldine and Max being my new favourite couple? And everyone FINALLY bowing to the Vega’s, and the building of the nest with Gabriel’s stick fascination😂 but if Seth and Caleb don’t get their shit together in the first few chapters of ZA9 I’ll scream.
I also don’t like a new villain in the last book trope. More annoying than exciting really, but I’m still kind of excited.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Sexual content, Grief, and War

reads_all_the_books's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-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? Yes

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Violence, and War