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cambion's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Gore, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Pedophilia and Murder
Minor: Mental illness
springybreak's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Gore, Mental illness, Torture, Violence, and Cannibalism
writererinm's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Gore and Violence
Minor: Ableism and Fatphobia
meg_thebrave's review against another edition
- 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
3.25
Graphic: Gore and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Death, Fatphobia, and Cannibalism
Minor: Homophobia, Mental illness, Pedophilia, and Sexism
zohannah's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Alcohol
an_library_stan's review against another edition
- 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
3.25
The magic is mysterious, even to the characters. I think it was nice they never really defined it. There were times when this annoyed me. Why didn't they just use magic to do X? I also was confused that sometimes really basic spells took meticulous study, understanding of the magicians' environment and specific ingredients to perform, and other times they just whipped out powerful spells seemingly without needing any of that.
The premise of the magical school and fantasy land and exceptional kids appealed to the part of me that felt like I never found my place in high school. I disliked the boy genius element of this, where it was mostly individual magicians doing genius magic after hard solo study. Kind of the same vibe as Iron Man building a super suit by himself.
My biggest issue with the book was some of the language the author used. It feels dated and cringe even for 2009. The book lives up to the stereotype of male authors writing excessively about women's breasts, including describing some as "gropable." Other sexism like this zinger "She hit like a girl, without any weight behind it, but he hadn't seen it coming to roll with it." Broadly sexualizes most female characters and few of the male characters. Multiple uses of the R word, descriptions of people "rocking autistically", racism towards indigenous people - descriptions of someone as "going native", this line seemingly painting Maori as other than human - "Human, or close to it anyway. Maybe Maori." There's a lot of normalized alcoholism in a friend group and no one really supports each other. Also intimate partner violence with a woman physically and verbally assaulting a man.
Graphic: Alcoholism
Moderate: Ableism, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and Racism
haleyrayreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The story is mainly driven by character who are pretty one note and their motivations are questionable at best. Their main quest is motivated by ‘well we aren’t doing anything else right now.’ and it takes forever to get to that point. This first 2/3 if this book was so slow. However, once they’re off on their quest the story moves at a more brisk pace that’s refreshing until the main antagonist is taken care of. After that it goes on several chapters too long. It felt like every time a chapter ended I thought that was the end, then there was even more story that served no purpose than to allow readers to wallow in our narrator’s sorrow. This could have been cut in half or more and gotten the same point across.
The concept is great and it’s a fun story with some adjustments, but the pacing, character development, and casual use of ableist and fatphobic language would make me hesitate to read this particular book again.
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Blood, and Alcohol
Moderate: Ableism, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, and Violence
Minor: Body shaming, Infidelity, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Toxic friendship
jmeier's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, and Classism
Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Biphobia, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Alcohol
starsnotshadows's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I watched the television series before reading the book, and that was an unfortunate mistake. I think both pieces of media are rather entertaining, but they are quite different. So I was kind of fighting my preconceived notions of this story for a bit there, but once I thought of them as separate tellings of a similar story, it got better for me.
Graphic: Gore, Infidelity, Violence, and Blood
nataliii's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
3.5
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(first read 👇🏼)
I'd give this a 2.75 if possible .. This book was so insanely difficult for me to stay interested in, and I love "these" types of books. The only character I found myself caring about at all was Alice, and only the last 100 pages or so really seemed worth reading. That being said, I'll probably still read the next one once it goes on sale in the Kindle store. /shrug
Moderate: Gore and Sexism
Minor: Pedophilia