Reviews tagging 'Blood'

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

97 reviews

kerrygetsliterary's review

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Gaslighting

cosmo_naut's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

First off: I am not a big mystery/thriller reader. It's not really my thing, so this will colour my preception of the book.
I read this book in one night, in the midst of exam season, because I just had to know that I was right with my predictions and guesses. I liked it in general and I had a good time reading it.
I don't think the prose will be to everyone's taste. It's supposed to be dark academia, so the book is littered with literary references that occasionally are rewarding to understand, but often seem very piled on. I did appreciate some of the meta-level a few of those discussions had. The plot was quite predictable (even for a newbie like me) and I could guess the plot twist pretty early on. I didn't really mind the tropy-ness of the book but I've seen some other reviewers complain about it. The ending seemed really rushed which was a bit disappointing because the build up of the tension was really good. I would have loved to spend more time on the aftermath of everything that happened. Instead, it feels like it was brushed off. The main character is 18 and this book being a mystery and Young Adult, I didn't mind her making a couple of stupid decisions - and in the grand scheme of things her decisions did make sense. The side characters sadly fell a bit flat. If the book had been 50, or even 100, pages longer, I think there would be the space to flesh out these characters as well as the ending more.
Whatever the technical issues with the book may be: I had a good time reading it. I would definitely recommend checking the content warnings before reading it - there's some pretty heavy things in here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Toxic relationship, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

rorykluciarova's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual content

kshertz's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

• 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

3.75

It was an interesting read. I did not go into it knowing very much. I really enjoyed the beginning in the premise that set up about unreliable narrators and trying to figure out what’s going on with these two girls. Also trying to figure out what happened with Alex. But it jumps around a lot which can make it hard to follow. There’s animal cruelty for seemingly no reason. I don’t fully connect with the characters and don’t really care what ended up happening to them so I can’t really recommend it. I’m not really loving that it seems to say killing people is so awesome. Some other review said “sorry, killing is not supposed to be a girl boss move” and that’s exactly how I feel too. It’s hard to get behind a message that feels like “lesbians are clearly all psychopaths”. I hope that’s not the intent. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

takarakei's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I wished this was more dark academia, which to me is a critique of academic institutions. I didn't really feel like this book critiqued boarding schools - it just talked about the dark history of this particular one. It's kinda hard to say a lot more about this book without spoilers because it's very mysterious. Definitely there's a lot of 'you don't know who to trust'. Sapphic. I think there was a lot of potential here, but it didn't quite hit it out of the park for me. I'm also not a thriller person so take that how you will, but I have read other YA thrillers that I liked more.

In the end there not being any magic was not where I wanted it to go. But I guess it's not fantasy tagged so maybe that was the giveaway? But 'witchcraft' is literally also used in the description, so...

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Drug use, Blood, and Alcohol

Minor: Eating disorder, Racism, and Sexual content

I had to skip a whole chapter cause of TW: animal death, so... yeah (explicit scenes of hunting)

zoeelora's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

peachmoni's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

2.5

You should probably just read The Secret History instead...

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Grief, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Blood, Murder, and Abandonment

Minor: Child abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Medical content, Lesbophobia, Outing, Alcohol, and Classism

brukneem's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This is YA as in it reads like you are watching a popular TV show- like Buffy or Sabrina. But the themes are DEFINITELY not YA! We love an unreliable narrator, mind games, magic, and murder.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

squinnittowinit's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.25

Personally I'm not a fan of psychological thrillers, as I find the theme of obsession to be boring. As much as I still did not enjoy what this book was about or any of the characters, I have to admit that it is very well-written. The pacing feels both laid-back and dream-like, yet suspenseful at the same time, as

the narrator slowly reveals herself to be more and more unreliable as she deals with both past trauma and current manipulation.

This is one of those books where all the pieces come together in the end to finally reveal the entire picture, creating a satisfying wrap-up, if nothing else.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Mental illness, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

Minor: Gun violence and Blood

lipstickitotheman's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Fine. It's a fairly engaging and enjoyable experience to listen to this. I didn't find it to spectacular, just a pretty solid YA novel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Gun violence, Racism, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content