Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Winner's Crime by Marie Rutkoski

5 reviews

thedarkfields's review

emotional tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Genocide, Grief, Gaslighting, and War

Minor: Animal death, Physical abuse, Suicide, and Death of parent

Colonisation, war, and slavery are main themes in this series. This book also includes a great deal of manipulation, emotional/physical abuse, some gaslighting, and off-page references to terrible things

(this includes brief references to killing a dog, repeated mentions of a murder made to look like a suicide, and a decent word count spent discussing a war tactic leading to starvation and genocide)

. It's dark.

There's one scene (fairly early on in the book) during which someone is briefly but brutally tortured in explicit detail. Can be skipped without missing plot. There are other brief references to torture but none I can recall that are explicit.

karly_ackley's review

adventurous dark 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

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Slavery, Torture, Murder, and War

ajboyd_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional lighthearted mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Racism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, and Classism

nytephoenyx's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Wow, The Winner’s Crime took me by surprise. This book was intense.

We talk a lot about how middle books are a bridge between books one and three and are a bit blah. That was not the case with The Winner’s Crime. This book – particularly Kestrel’s POV – was a constant rollercoaster. I loved listening to it.

Well, I loved listening to Kestrel’s POV chapters. As I found with The Winner’s Curse, Arin’s chapters were ridden with a lot of stereotypical poor decisions and I found him underwhelming. Honestly, I don’t know what Kestrel sees in him as a person because Arin is reckless and shortsighted and frustrating. Please know – when I say “stereotypical poor decisions”, I’m not giving Rutkoski enough credit. Even though Arin makes a lot of expected choices, Rutkoski chose to take the story in a different direction than I expected. This book stressed me out in a lot of the best ways and I appreciated it.

Kestrel, Arin, and the emperor all fit neatly into character tropes and are easy to get to know in a short period of time. As far as characters go, Rutkoski hasn’t done anything spectacular. These characters aren’t memorable on their own and won’t bring readers back for their own sake. The Winner’s Crime relies heavily on its plot to bring in readers. If you aren’t interested at the beginning or if you’re a very strong character reader, this series may fail to interest you.

For myself, I wasn’t overly impressed with The Winner’s Curse, but I was intrigued enough to pick up the sequel… and I’m glad I did. The interesting parts of the story flourish in The Winner’s Crime and this book stressed me out. In a good way. In that “yelling at the TV ‘NO DON’T GO IN THERE'” kind of way. I really enjoyed it and I’m glad I picked it up. I have no idea how this trilogy is going to end and I can’t wait to find out.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Racism, Medical content, and War

Minor: Slavery

beautifulpaxielreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Physical abuse, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Death of parent and War