Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Last She by H.J. Nelson

4 reviews

hilary89's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring 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? It's complicated

3.75

The narration and writing was overall quite good. I found the premise and resulting story compelling, though there are a lot of unanswered questions left at the end. Ara and Kaden’s romance was definitely the highlight and I’ll definitely continue the story to see how they navigate this post-apocalyptic world where she’s one of the last women left.

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mina2299's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced
  • 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? No

3.5


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horrorandscience's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense 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? Yes

2.5

Arabella (Ara) Edana lives in a world where women do not exist, because they were all killed by a mysterious plague. The plague wiped out almost all women, a good amount of men, and turned animals feral. Separated from her father, Ara starts trailing a camp to steal their supplies—until she’s kidnapped and shackled in an abandoned mall. 

This book really had potential. The premise and storyline it had (at the beginning) had me invested, until it started to fall apart. Strong Ara who had survived for three years with very little help, now becomes dependent on these random men who kidnapped her. And then she starts falling in love, and you’ve lost me.

There is a very fun plot point that involves a medical research center that is only a blip. If the story focused more on that, I would have enjoyed it much more. Instead, it follows 30 other plot points, and everything becomes muddled and confusing.

This book is also a mixture of fun apocalypse and terrifying apocalypse, and the mood was all over the place.

This definitely feels like a first draft. There are good bones, and plenty of room for improvement.

And not one POC or queer person? Really?

Thank you to NetGalley and Wattpad for the chance to read this advanced review copy. 

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betweentheshelves's review against another edition

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adventurous tense fast-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

2.0

Thank you to NetGalley and Wattpad books for an advanced copy of this to review. Unfortunately, this book just missed the mark for me. As someone who reads a fair amount of dystopia and did my MA thesis on gender portrayals in YA dystopian lit, this book had so much potential! Set in a not-so-distant future, there were so many possibilities to talk about the nuances of gender and how that might be affected in a world where basically all the women have disappeared. Unfortunately, these conversations didn't really happen and the book took a totally different turn.

Additionally, there are a lot of plot holes and inconsistencies that took me somewhat out of the story. I think a finer attention to detail in the editing process was needed. While there is going to be a second book in the series, I think there are still way too many questions that need to be answered moving forward.

There is a dual perspective here, and I think it helped in builidng this apocalyptic world, for the most part. The voices are strong, and there is some decent chemistry between the main two characters. That's where the strengths lie for this book, but unfortunatley everything else missed the mark for me. 

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