Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

A Court This Cruel and Lovely by Stacia Stark

5 reviews

druzyquartz's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Toxic relationship, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, and Gaslighting

hapalyn's review

adventurous funny tense slow-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

Were there some cliche plot points? Yes. BUT-

The way I loved the adventure and build up to a bigger plotline, and I really enjoyed the found family aspect with the "mercenaries". The FMC is intelligent and I love the heart of gold she has! I also really enjoy the magic she possesses, it's really unique compared to other fantasy FMCs I've read lately! 

A couple of reveals lined up to be a little too coincidental for me, but I think the enjoyment I experienced throughout the read made up for the lack of believability in some areas (and, well it's fantasy so it's not necessarily believable anyways). The twist with the MMC had me intrigued because while I somewhat expected it, I think part of me didn't want to at the same time. I'm very interested to see the resolution between FMC AND MMC, but I'm not looking forward to reading 500 pages to get there... lol. 

I will be continuing with this series and enjoying the different characters!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Alcohol

Minor: Rape, Death of parent, and Vomit

For fire injury: there are people executed by being burned alive For rape/sexual assault: there's implications of side characters being rapists, and there is an attempted sexual assault/rape + attempted murder of FMC towards the first half of the book

she is not assaulted and kills the guy

For murder: couple of different deaths by beheading, stabbing, pushed into a river, etc.

katvou's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.25

Fantasy romance with forced proximity (one horse trope), found family and enemies to lovers / forbidden romance. Revenge, bargains & betrayal. Interesting and unique magic system.

Mostly I really liked the book and the FMC. The pace was a bit slow to my taste in the middle of the book and it felt like there wasn’t really anything interesting going on but I liked both the beginning and end. End had some nice twist, some I was able to guess beforehand but some were a surprise.

Definitely going to read the rest of the series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Slavery, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Child death, Death of parent, and Kidnapping

Minor: Toxic friendship, Sexual violence, Vomit, Cannibalism, Sexual harassment, Excrement, Medical content, Rape, Body horror, Bullying, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

cassandramt17's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Sexual content, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Confinement, Classism, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Sexism

Minor: Vomit, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Rape, War, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, and Alcohol

wickedgrumpy's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

So many tropes were checked off in this book.

The world building is interesting and mysterious enough that I will probably eventually continue, if only because it's an easy read with low personal stakes since I didn't really care about the characters.  The banter was amusing and the plotting was fun.  There were some pacing issues, but it was kind of necessary plot-wise so I'm not bothered by it.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Bullying, Child death, Classism, Slavery, Violence, Alcohol, Death of parent, Medical content, Murder, Vomit, Blood, Body shaming, Genocide, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Body horror, Confinement, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Stalking, War, Xenophobia, Torture, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Outing, Police brutality, Sexism, Self harm, Cursing, Death, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping