greenglass67's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Pretty good book! It feels like an episode of Criminal Minds. It's a pretty court-heavy crime drama, but the pacing and other elements of the story keep it from getting boring. There are a lot of layers to the story and the crime involved and a few minor plot twists that I didn't see coming. It does take a bit to really get going, but I still enjoyed it. I think this book is part of a series, but I read it as a standalone and didn't have any trouble understanding it.
Graphic: Death, Murder, Blood, Violence, and Police brutality
Moderate: Sexual violence, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Car accident, Gun violence, and Medical content
Minor: Homophobia
lostcupofstars's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
This was good and had the potential to be a really excellent read. I don’t normally read crime fiction but this came highly recommended. The plot was really well thought out - even while knowing that the killer is on the jury, there are still a number of things that keep you on your toes.
Where it let itself down was the character development. I know that this is #4 in a series of books about this same lawyer, but they can also be read a stand-alone books. I think there are way too many characters, very few of which are developed and this means that some of the parts that are supposed to be shocking don’t land the way they should. I found myself having to flick back to figure out who the reveal character was and what I had missed.
The action scenes were also really hard to follow, a little bit too much was left to the imagination and I had to keep rereading paragraphs to understand what had happened.
THAT being said, I did enjoy reading this. The things I listed stopped it from being a 5 star read, but once I hit the 60% point I had to finish it and stayed up til 3am to do so.
Where it let itself down was the character development. I know that this is #4 in a series of books about this same lawyer, but they can also be read a stand-alone books. I think there are way too many characters, very few of which are developed and this means that some of the parts that are supposed to be shocking don’t land the way they should. I found myself having to flick back to figure out who the reveal character was and what I had missed.
The action scenes were also really hard to follow, a little bit too much was left to the imagination and I had to keep rereading paragraphs to understand what had happened.
THAT being said, I did enjoy reading this. The things I listed stopped it from being a 5 star read, but once I hit the 60% point I had to finish it and stayed up til 3am to do so.
Graphic: Murder and Violence
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Child abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Car accident, Classism, Death of parent, and Hate crime
Minor: Homophobia, Terminal illness, and Rape
that_art_monster's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
4.0
Graphic: Blood, Violence, Torture, Stalking, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Physical abuse, Murder, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Abandonment
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