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quinnpjd930's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail
kaneli's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Ableism, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Self harm, Blood, and Medical trauma
Minor: Cursing, Deadnaming, and War
humanmosquito's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
Full of White Savior-ness, cringey dialogue and little to no regards as to the rules of her universe--Clare at her finest.
The characters were flat and one dimensional, the plot was nearly non-existent and crawled along at a pace so slow a snail could not see it move. I had hope for several characters but as usual Clare failed to follow through. As per usual Clare's treatment of minorities is stereotypical and tokenist.
The plot revolves around one super-special white girl whose motivations and aspirations disappeared somewhere in the beginning of the previous book. Emma's entire purpose in this story is to prop up her forbidden lover/adoptive brother. (who is extremely unlikeable and grows even more so throughout the novel,) Their shared plot comes down to drawn out angst over their relationship, lusting over each other and having the blandest sex I'm sure is humanly possible.
The resolution of both the main plot and the novel made no sense and contradicted the rest of the book. and its characters.
Drawing focus away from the main plot, subplots include; a trip to an alternate universe that was copy and pasted straight from ao3, Clare's only trans character getting outed, a fanservice almost-romance, and rushed polyamory. (note: I did feel that Mark, Kieran and Cristina had a lot of potential but Clare stripped all of them down to sexy mannequins to get them together, especially Cristina whose entire character revolves down to providing emotional labour for and lusting over her love interests.)
A huge part of this book was Clare trying to get back at critics of her books and counterintuitively proving their point. (common criticisms of her original series include the use of incest as a romantic subplot and lack of relevance to the plotline herself-insert protagonist had.)
This
The characters were flat and one dimensional, the plot was nearly non-existent and crawled along at a pace so slow a snail could not see it move. I had hope for several characters but as usual Clare failed to follow through. As per usual Clare's treatment of minorities is stereotypical and tokenist.
The plot revolves around one super-special white girl whose motivations and aspirations disappeared somewhere in the beginning of the previous book. Emma's entire purpose in this story is to prop up her forbidden lover/adoptive brother. (who is extremely unlikeable and grows even more so throughout the novel,) Their shared plot comes down to drawn out angst over their relationship, lusting over each other and having the blandest sex I'm sure is humanly possible.
The resolution of both the main plot and the novel made no sense and contradicted the rest of the book. and its characters.
Drawing focus away from the main plot, subplots include; a trip to an alternate universe that was copy and pasted straight from ao3, Clare's only trans character getting outed, a fanservice almost-romance, and rushed polyamory. (note: I did feel that Mark, Kieran and Cristina had a lot of potential but Clare stripped all of them down to sexy mannequins to get them together, especially Cristina whose entire character revolves down to providing emotional labour for and lusting over her love interests.)
A huge part of this book was Clare trying to get back at critics of her books and counterintuitively proving their point. (common criticisms of her original series include the use of incest as a romantic subplot and lack of relevance to the plotline her
This
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Violence
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Ableism, Incest, and Transphobia
I counted around 4-5 sex scenes (nearly all cut-to-blacks),a very badly done and pedestrian feeling allegory of racism/"politics" and the writer's ableist, lesbophobic and transphobic biases are clear in the text.