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Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman

15 reviews

ghostsversion's review

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dark funny sad tense medium-paced
  • 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? No

3.5

When I first bought this, I thought it was going to be one of those classic myth retellings where the author decides to write about the forgotten characters in the original. However this book was only loosely based on the original by naming the main character Pandora and involving a pithos that may or may not have been cursed. Honestly the book was fine but it just didn’t have any one part that made me go „damn“ in a good way.

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shelbybtaylor's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0


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contemporarymeepsie's review

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adventurous dark hopeful informative lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Pandora Blake is a young budding jewellery designer praying for an escape from her uncle's watchful eye. When he parents died her uncle took over looking after Pandora and the antiquity shop her parents built. But he deals in underhand markets and when a strange pithos is brought in to the shop, Dora finds her world suddenly upended in the most unpredictable way. With the help of Edward Lawrence who desperately wants to be accepted in to the Society of Antiquarians and her trusted magpie Hermes, Dora discovers the truth of the pithos and along with it, the truth of her own past.
This was a fun historical fiction novel with a dash of magical realism and mythology thrown in for good effect. Whilst it didn't wow me, it also never bored me and I enjoyed my time with Pandora and Edward, both likable but naive characters. I think if I'd read this when I was younger it would've gotten a higher score. But I enjoyed it all the same. A fun romp through Georgian London with a dash of Grecian peril to give it some flavour.

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flickwitch's review

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

4.0


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bookishwondergoth's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced
  • 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? No

3.0

This was a nice, easy to read  historical fiction novel inspired by the Greek myth of Pandora’s Box. Both the story and the prose are nothing spectacular but I still had a fun time. It also has one of the most truly hateable out and out villains I’ve read in a while.

For a book so focused around the black market trade of antiquities, I was a bit disappointed that the role of the British Empire in plundering Greece artifacts was never really raised. There was very little nuance in relation to this subject which threw me out of the book a bit. I think it would have been a more interesting read to have that kind of topic included.

I really enjoyed the side characters (Lady Latimer being a particular favourite).

Overall glad I read this. Recommended to those looking for a nicely paced, ambiguously supernatural historical mystery.

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mpbookreviews's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75


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mtnest's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • 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? No

3.0


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molly_greenshields's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious relaxing slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Susan Stokes-Chapman certainly brings something different to the Greek retelling trend with Pandora, blending mythology with historical realism in this Georgian-style mystery. The characters were complex, the plot was fun and I found myself not wanting to put the book down once I reached the last hundred or so pages (I will  never be recovered enough to talk about Hermes). Having said that, I don't think it really needed to be 400 pages long in the first place: the prose was dense and relatively slow-moving for the most part and... there just wasn't the same lyrical beauty of Circe or Ariadne (sorry). All in all though, this was a fun read and a rather refreshing take on what's fast-becoming an over-saturated genre.

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emma3674's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • 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? No

5.0

Great book, took some time to get interesting but very unputdownable towards the end, loved the story and the mystery involved

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ell_n's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0


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