Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall

33 reviews

jencolumb0's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

4.75

This is a bit darker of a tale than I am used to from Hall, and without the more intense periods of emotional struggle/growth endured by the main characters (so more on par with Something Fabulous). Nonetheless, Hall carries it off in their typical hallmarks of deliciously layered tales, classical references, delightful subversion, and deft honesty. It’s also not the typical kissing book with magic, by any stretch of the imagination, but well worth exploring. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, and Blood

Moderate: Stalking and Death of parent

Minor: Slavery, Transphobia, Excrement, Colonisation, and Classism

Given that this book is about confronting a lack of agency and aggressively claiming space and happiness that the patriarchy denies, a number of these difficult topics are challenged. There’s also a bit about food turning to maggots in someone’s mouth that is not for the squeamish.

hrtlss_grl's review

adventurous emotional funny inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

hailstorm3812's review

adventurous funny hopeful medium-paced

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

4.75

This is such a weird romance but it suits me so perfectly. I really enjoyed the story itself and the blending of regency and fantasy, but honestly my favorite part was Puck. It's such a fun device that adds a lot of comedy and also watching them actually grow to care about them when they are supposed to be objective was really fun. I think without it some of the characters could be thin but since it's coming from a third person POV that doesn't really get humans it works. I had a lot of fun and would love to see more of this.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Animal death, Homophobia, Blood, and Death of parent

atlastheninth's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.5

3.5 Stars 

 

Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall is a romance between two young ladies in the 19th century, but wicked men, curses and goddesses are standing in their way. 

 

The story is told from a (sarcastic) hobgoblin who is observing our MCs secretly, which is fun and inventive, especially in the begging. But it did feel tedious after a while. 

The story was fun, the characters were more or less cute (I don’t think I can describe them any differently, really) and the writing was fine. 

But because the story is being told from this (non-human) outsider POV, I just couldn’t connect to the characters at all. I could only really guess what they were thinking, let alone feeling. And from what they were described as doing, they all seemed to be a bit stupid frankly. 

It was all just very shallow. 

 

The book has this kind of 4 part structure where the first half of the book felt like your average book: characters are introduced, things happen, climax, end. And then there is another quarter of just romance and another quarter of again things happen, climax, end. That did irritate me a bit while reading, but looking back I suppose I didn’t really mind it. 

 

In short: Nice read, but nothing more. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Sexual content and Sexual harassment

Minor: Death of parent

displacedcactus's review against another edition

emotional lighthearted slow-paced

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

I don't know why I keep reading Alexis Hall books! I always love the idea of them, but inevitably there's something lacking in the execution, something different each time. I think I have to concede that he's a perfectly good author, but just not right for me.

In the case of Mortal Follies, my issues with the book can be summed up in three points:
1. It's incredibly slow-paced and repetitive, and could have been tightened up by about 20-30%.
2. It wants to be light-hearted but also involves sacrificing animals to old gods.
3. Having Robin Goodfellow narrate the story from a distance would be GREAT in a short story or novella! He's an entertaining narrator! But having him narrate a full-length (slightly over-long) romance novel was a poor choice, IMHO, because he puts a real distance between the reader and the main characters. We never truly know what they are thinking or feeling, which makes it hard to buy the romance.

Btw, this distance also extends to the love scenes. Very low spice level here.

It does get points for depicting the fae folk in a way more in line with traditional lore than with the current genre tropes of smexy faeries.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Blood

yourbookishbff's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, and Murder

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual content, Transphobia, Blood, and Lesbophobia

aileron's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted 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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Blood, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Gore, Medical content, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Racism, Slavery, Terminal illness, and Classism

luckylulureads's review against another edition

adventurous funny relaxing 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

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Cursing

Minor: Death, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual content, Transphobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation

brontesauruses's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted 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? Yes

4.0

Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss+ for letting me get at this one early in exchange for an honest review!

Ok, so before I start the actual review: please take a minute to look at the cover. It's so pink, I love it. 💕
Did you look at it? Ok good.

As for the book itself, it's so much fun. It's queer and silly and told in a way that I ended up really enjoying. Our omniscient narrator is a character in their own right: Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow aka Stanley Tucci* in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)), who has been kicked out by Oberon, and now has to find a way to, you know, pay for food. The tone is very chatty. At times it felt like the chattiness was at the expense of pushing the story along, and it took me a couple chapters to get into it (it might even have been worse towards the beginning), but in the end I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if it had been told differently.
If Puck Hall wants to write more books like this, I want to read them.

Idk that I have any readalikes per se, but I do think that if you like Emily Wilde you might like this one (and vice versa). Very different flavors of Faerie Nonsense, but yeah. Divine Rivals also maybe.

One quick bit of content warning: the Old Gods are still there causing problems, so there are three whole animal sacrifices in this one, each one more...well-described than the last. Lots of blood.
Also, there was a bit of virulent transphobia that was immediately challenged by the narrative and one of the main characters. OOF, though. Very jarring.

*I'm sure the audiobook narrator is very good, but as I was reading, I couldn't help wishing that they'd gotten my man Stanley in on this.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, and Medical content

Minor: Death, Racism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Abandonment

bibliomania_express's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Stalking, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Classism

Minor: Slavery and Colonisation