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direguard's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Incest, Rape, Sexual assault, Vomit, Medical content, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
lindsayhwrites's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Graphic: Ableism, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Dementia, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Incest
gracehannahh's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Suicide, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
_jas's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Murder, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Grief
auburn_phoenix_15's review against another edition
- 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
I absolutely loved it! I have never read a gothic romance before and I had heard a lot about this book and author and I thought why not.
It was not what I was expecting...😶
It was dark, twisted, sick in som places and with some characters, heart wrenching, hot and spicy and other times teeth rottingly sweet.😚🫠
I loved the representation of people with schizophrenia and the draw backs that and struggles it can cause for family members.
I think I am going to to enjoy her other books but I am throughly annoyed with the fact the prequel hasn't been published yet and I have no idea if there is a sequel coming!!! 😫😒
Otherwise go read it! 😁
Moderate: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
hitheremynameislisa's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Moderate: Forced institutionalization and Dementia
jshawreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Now, I dont mind a bit of spice in my fiction... But when the spice is just purely "This is my p***y now", "slam, slam, slam" and the main characters thighs being "soaked", along with the worst phrase I have ever read (and it came up twice) "Her nipples pebbled" it just comes off as tacky. Gratuitous sex and poorly written, supposedly romantic, moments really detracted from the actual plot. If the sub-plot of romance was gone, this book would have been infinitely better.
This is a real shame, this book could have been excellent
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Fire/Fire injury
prasenna__'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicide, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail
viselik's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
SCHIZOPHRENIA, SUICIDE, SELF-HARM, ABUSE, IFFY SEXUAL SITUATIONS OR INCEST
I would have done lower stars if I could. This book honestly handles the topics inside of it really poorly. If I wasn't so stubborn about my rule about finishing a book, I would have put this down after chapter 10.
I won't really go in-depth here as I'm not even comfortable remembering the book fully, would highly recommend The Book Leo's video here on this book as she states a lot of what I feel about this book but I'll give a quick rundown of my final thoughts on it.
Spoiler
The main cast of characters all feel quite childlike at times, I'm not quite sure about it. Even the teacher character Vad Deverell feels like this a lot of the time. Even more so on how jealous he gets over Troy or Jax who are both around 19 years old. Corvina (whose name is literally a fish) I can't even get started at how childlike she seemed, or just how unaware of the danger she could be in.
Also, why did it take until around chapter 16 to find out Vad's age? Why is the author hiding it? Not to mention it's only said once, compared to the several times the student's ages are given out or even the amount of times we are told Corvina is in her early 20s.
The author does state that she made Vad's character vague but having that doesn't excuse how one-dimensional he felt most of the time. Even when we are finding out about his backstory it didn't feel like it was helping his character, at times I even preferred now knowing as I was constantly thinking by the end if he was going to kill someone like he did his grandfather.
The main mystery of the book, the Black Ball held every 5 years and each time it's on someone goes missing... well this is never answered. Instead, we get an incest scene about our love interest Vad's crazy family member who wants to have his kids so they would have good 'devil' genes and could run the school. This same family member has caused at least 2 people to jump off the roof and tried to get our MC to do it as well, she does this via a drug... Yeah. I would highly not recommend this book to anyone.
The several sex scenes in this feel rather poorly written, there are a few moments floating around the internet about some of the lines from this book but as I've read I've noticed a few more. Quite a
lot of them are all in the sex scenes and their incessant need to mention madness, but this madness is never really described.
Another thing I noticed about this book, we get a lot of being told but not having it described at all. Like the music from chapter 2 I believe, it's said to be "Haunting. Eerie. Ethereal." though nothing else is really described about it. We don't even know it's a piano till we see the guy who is playing it.
If you are looking for sex scenes, please just go look at the porn without plot tag on AO3 you could probably find even better sex scenes without having to pay for them.
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Incest, Sexual assault, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gaslighting
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Dementia, Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment
- Consent is never given in one of the sex scenes. -dosxhime's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Incest, Suicidal thoughts, and Stalking
Minor: Rape