Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Becoming by Nora Roberts

5 reviews

madamenovelist's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• 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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Fantasy has an unfortunate history of utilizing antisemitic blood libel (kidnapping/killing children) trope. It features heavily in this book. I don’t think La Nora is aware this trope’s roots are antisemitic and I respect the hell out of her writing. But the blood libel bit knocked this book from 3.5 to 2.75 for me.

gris_zorra's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Xenophobia, and Blood

nerdyforbooks_'s review against another edition

adventurous emotional slow-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? No

3.0

Ugh, this next entry in the series was rough. It basically highlighted all the bad parts of the first book (weird dialogue, using slang that makes no sense, making Marco the stereotype of a  gay man) & made them worse.

The first almost 200 pages are a snooze fest. I found Marco annoying AF & honestly wished all his parts would just end (NOT how I felt about him in the first book even though there were issues). Plus the insta-love story he gets. While headed on that track in the first book, Breen is made more of the magical goddess who just “knows” and can “do stuff.” At least she’s still terrible with the sword, bow, & hand to hand combat. Except for points when she really should have been killed because she’s… bad at fighting.

This book, maybe even series, doesn’t know what it wants to be. Romance? Yeah, hardly. Breen & Keegan don’t come back to each other until like… page 300 almost. We get one “steamy” scene & otherwise it’s like “they spent the night together, page break.” Adventure fantasy? Nope, fight scenes are like 3 pages max with bare minimum descriptions. Since it’s trying to be a romance I could give this a pass but like… the romance aspect is also lacking?? And why does Odran keep trying to do the same damn shit? And why is Shana the only freaking interesting character? 

I’ll finish the series because I need to know what happens & don’t think it’s a terrible overall concept. This book wasn’t it though. It was slow, even though it took place over like 2 weeks, boring, and couldn’t find an identity. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Sexual assault

cyndi1966's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and War

purplepenning's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexism and Pregnancy