Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Blood Countess by Lana Popović

10 reviews

esther_palko's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Murder, and Blood

lovesit1892's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Blood, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, and Domestic abuse

jenny_librarian's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.5

This book could also be titled “The making of a Elizabeth Bathory”, and it’s as good as it sounds. It fits the original material well and the sapphic relationship integrates well in the pre-existing myth.

I really liked the audiobook. The narrator added to the flavour of horror and darkness written by the author.

Definitely a good read for fans of vampires in need of more queer rep.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Torture

Moderate: Abortion, Misogyny, Sexism, and Child abuse

Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

thelowlysloth's review

dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Death, Grief, Gaslighting, Body horror, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Torture, Murder, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Infertility

charley34's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Murder, Gore, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Gaslighting, Death, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Child death, Abortion, Animal cruelty, Grief, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, and Infidelity

prolinn's review against another edition

dark tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Blood, and Child abuse

melaniereadsbooks's review

dark slow-paced

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

3.0

This book was incredibly bloody, as can be expected from a Lady Dracula retelling. I have to say I honestly hated both main characters, and that made it hard for me to enjoy this book.  Obviously you are supposed to dislike Elizabeth, but I didn't find much to like about Anna either. I did enjoy the plot for a while, but ended up not enjoying the ending very much, as I thought things were resolved too easily. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, and Torture

Moderate: Sexual content and Sexual harassment

tahsintries's review

dark

• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Murder, Sexism, Torture, and Violence

eleanorefiore's review

dark sad fast-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Death

Minor: Sexism

There is an emotionally and physically abusive f\f relationship. If you're triggered by this, I would not read this book, mostly because of the ending, which I'll put in the spoiler tag at the bottom of the page. There is also extremely graphic descriptions of torture and violence. Stuff that made me flinch or skip pages or feel physically ill afterwards, and I'm not usually someone affected by that sort of thing.

Anna, the victim, never gets full closure, and is forced to be around her abusers family for, seemingly, the rest of her life. There's also a scene of death by poison described in detail.

caidyn's review

dark tense medium-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

3.0

On reread, I decided to bump it up to 3 stars but I still had the same issues with it as the first time. I plan on trying the second book in this series to see if I like it better.

CW: blood, murder, intimate partner violence, poisoning, and death

This was my most anticipated book of 2020. I was SO excited for a story that talked about Elizabeth Bathory (sorry for the Anglicized version of her name, but I don't have the keyboard that can do the accents). There's basically nothing about her and, personally, I feel that the charges are largely made up and they were put on her by men who wanted to control her. But that's me! Also, I was super excited that this book is queer with an F/F relationship.

So, what went wrong?

The book, overall, felt very amateurish. The writing felt like it was a first-time author. The plotting felt the same. The characters were just off. I did not like how Elizabeth was portrayed at all in this book. It didn't feel realistic with how much she changed and then that poor man's version of psychopathy that was forced on her. And Anna, the MC, was so bland and boring. I would have preferred it from Elizabeth's perspective.

The relationship between Anna and Elizabeth also sucked. It was like they were adversaries then, all of the sudden, they were lovers. And then hated each other again. I couldn't follow the characterization of their relationship one bit.

Overall, I was so disappointed with this book. I'm very glad that I didn't decide to buy it. I know this is going to have more books in it -- probably about another famous historical woman who's rumored to have killed people -- but I'll likely skip it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Abortion, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Torture, and Violence