Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

81 reviews

jamiejanae_6's review against another edition

adventurous 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, War, Grief, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Classism, Emotional abuse, and Medical content

gpfot's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Gore, War, Grief, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Alcohol, Death, Death of parent, Cursing, and Abandonment

abicaro17's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Holy shit..... Well Rebecca Ross it's on sight girl! Iris is a reporter competing for a columnist spot against fellow reporter, Roman. As Iris writes letter to her brother who's away at war, she tucks them away inside her closet. These letter end up in the hands of her rival, Roman, who begins to write her back. As war tears across the country and propaganda and misinformation reigns supreme, Iris and Roman create a magical friendship through letters. I adore this story! It's just magical enough to be not realistic but not too crazy as to be hard to understand and follow. Iris is a strong and yet logical and likable character. She makes normal choices and thinks through her issues before jumping into action. Roman is adorable and this conclusion makes me mad af. Like gotta go read Ruthless Vows brb. My only issue with this book is that the start is slow and the world building isn't explained very well until later. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Body horror, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Murder, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Misogyny, Slavery, Alcoholism, Classism, Child death, Death, Kidnapping, Medical content, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Genocide, Addiction, Vomit, War, Alcohol, Violence, Gore, and Sexual content

purplepenning's review

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, War, Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Blood, Grief, and Classism

filipa_maia's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny 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

This book was such a surprise! I was not expecting to become so invested in this characters and a story about war.

I like how strong Iris is, I like how fearless Kitt is, I like Attie, and Marisol - this book has bunch of interesting and unique characters.

I loved all the twists and turns the plot took, just when I thought I had everything figured out, something completely blindsided me and I was caught of guard.

I can't wait to read the second book, find out more about these Gods, about Forest and how it will all end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Classism, Violence, War, Abandonment, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Blood, Gaslighting, and Grief

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Gaslighting, and Addiction

readyforit's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

2⭐️0.25🌶️(nearly fade to black, nondescript)
If you are a person who never asks questions and can just accept the information you’re given, you may enjoy this book. The author does a pretty terrible job of world-building and explaining the magic system. We assume the story takes place on our earth, but the country isn’t named. Idk if it was meant to be England or a completely fictional land altogether. They have different names for months and days of the week, but the order of them isn’t explained. The magic of the typewriters is never explained (why is the wardrobe necessary?), nor the magical buildings (until book 2, and even then it’s not really that important). I think they could’ve cut half of the more mundane stuff and used that to either combine it with the sequel, or do a lot more world-building. 

This book would’ve done better as a historical fiction book, without marketing it as fantasy or romance, since it has very little of either. The war was obviously based off of WWI, so the author should’ve just set it up as that, and added the magical typewriter element for fun. Also, this book was marketed as an enemies/rivals to lovers story and we never got that. It’s more like acquaintances to lovers, or a workplace romance. Tbh I didn’t think that the MCs had very good chemistry and I didn’t understand why they made some of their choices. I did think some of their letters were sweet but the whole storyline of Roman

waiting to tell iris that he was the anonymous person she was sending letters to until she had developed feelings  for him, both as her coworker and her penpal, rubbed me the wrong way. Like the author was trying to force a love triangle or miscommunication trope.

Then they got married all of the sudden, just so they could spend the night together, which made sense after I found out the author is religious.

I wanted to DNF at 20% and 50% but this book came so highly recommended, with many people saying it is their new favorite book. I was so bored the whole time. Don’t feel guilty for DNFing, you won’t miss much. I’m sorry to say that even the audiobook narrators sounded bored, and who could blame them?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism and Grief

Minor: Vomit and Death of parent

I think this book is loosely based on WWI war tactics so if that’s triggering for you, skip it

maddy707's review

emotional funny 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

5.0

Here’s what I liked:

The writing style. It’s exactly what I look for in a book. A balance between lyrical and not. The flow of the writing and the pacing of this book is perfect.

The character’s. I loved all of the main characters in this book, especially Iris and Roman. 

The exploration of grief. It was beautifully written.

Here’s what I didn’t like (none of these things were enough to drag the book down for me):

Once the romance actually turned into a romance it went EXTREMELY QUICK. At first I didn’t like it but then the themes of the book came into play. This story tells us that life is fleeting because of the threat of war and how so much can be ripped away from someone in a single day. So the choice of Roman and Kitt getting married straight away actually makes sense when you think about it. 

The ending is a bit miffy. It was so… abrupt. But again that’s what the book told us. I think it felt so rushed and quick because the author needs to lead into the next book, which I imagine is going to focus a lot more on the war. She just wasn’t able to do it as smoothly as it should’ve been. Maybe an extra 50 pages would have helped. 

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Grief, War, Classism, and Alcoholism

amy_q13's review

adventurous dark emotional 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, War, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Car accident, Classism, Alcoholism, and Addiction

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Sexual content, Physical abuse, and Vomit

amy_in_the_city's review

dark emotional 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? No

4.75

I loved the epistolary elements of this book, and the writing was absolutely beautiful! The love story felt very Pride & Prejudice-inspired. I liked the setting, but I thought there could have been a bit more worldbuilding. The fantasy elements (other than the magic typewriters and Kitt's magic house) felt too abstract. I don't feel like I got a good sense of the gods and the monsters, but I'm assuming that will be explored more in the sequel. Still, for most of the book, I felt like I was just reading a WWI historical novel instead of a different fantasy world inspired by WWI. I didn't understand the main characters' decision to

stay and defend the town even though they were not soldiers and had no fighting training or equipment. They didn't accomplish anything at all by staying, so the decision felt contrived for plot reasons.

. Another thing that seemed contrived for plot reasons is

Forest not revealing himself sooner and instead deciding that waiting to kidnap Iris during battle was the best course of action.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, War, Grief, Blood, Death of parent, Death, Classism, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Car accident, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child death, and Medical content

Minor: Sexual content and Stalking

readingduckling's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

5.0

The book is beautifully written but extremely sad an I would recommend to check trigger warnings and maybe being in a stable headspace and maybe already own the second book so you can continue reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, War, Violence, Medical content, Grief, and Abandonment

Moderate: Death of parent, Misogyny, and Classism

Minor: Vomit, Panic attacks/disorders, and Fire/Fire injury