DNF after page 69
Daniel owns a rare book that is the last one from the author. A mysterious man has been systematically finding all the author's books and burning them, so now Daniel has the last copy. When he is a child, Daniel falls in love with a woman ten years older than himself, then as a teen, he is devastated to discover that she has a lover. 

This book includes an explicit sex scene, violence, crass comments and sexual innuendos. 
To see details of the objectionable and explicit content in this book, check it out on the Screen It First Website. https://screenitfirst.com/book/the-shadow-of-the-wind-the-cemetery-of-forgotten-books-2480671

I was really disappointed in this book because the prose is beautiful, but the subject material is so ugly and disgusting.

Emma has grown up in Cornwall with her grandmother, Madam, who also adopted 6 troubled orphan boys. The boys (aged 3 to 17) run rampant around the house, and Madam (nicknamed Mad) does little to control them, instead allowing their imaginations to run free and joining in their wild and violent games. When the USA and UK declare a merging of their governments, American Marines set up blockades on the road and cut the telephone service, basically setting up martial law for an undetermined period of time while the government transitions. Mad is furious, and she encourages the boys and all the townsfolk to rebel against the new government. 

This book was so awful on so many levels. Everyone in the whole household is insane. Madam's nickname is literally "Mad", and the housekeeper's name is Dotty. There are tons of references in the plot that give you a hint that they are all deranged in some way. Emma is the only one who seems somewhat normal, but as she sees the rest of them engaging in more and more violent and irrational behavior, she decides to just accept it and join in because she loves them all. So toxic and gross. 

There is some profanity, but what was really disgusting was that the older boys taught the youngest 3-year-old child to say curse words. And there is quite a bit of violence and descriptions of guts and blood. An 11-year-old child commits murder, and Mad and the rest of the family hide the body. The child shows no remorse. He is proud of his "first kill." This book is so messed up. 

To see all the descriptions of violence and profanity, check out the book on the Screen It First website! https://screenitfirst.com/book/rule-britannia-2082976

The author reflects on what it means to truly listen to God's voice and seek Him in every little aspect of our lives. The reader is encouraged to spend time in prayer and listen for that small inner prompting from the Holy Spirit that leads you in one direction or another.

I liked the basic premise of this book, but I felt like the author took it a little too far. Yes, we should seek God's direction in all we do, but I don't need to ask God what to have for breakfast. Just choose a healthy breakfast and get on with your day. Yes, God cares about the little details of our lives, but I don't think I need to stop everything and pray to ask God for direction about each little detail. It's also true that no detail is too small to pray about, and God listens and guides us in everything. But this book really just makes mountains out of molehills.

Finally I got to page 52 where the author tells a story about how he was experiencing writer's block, and became convinced that it was a demonic attack. That just seems like overreacting to me. Maybe your writer's block is just coming from normal human patterns of creativity and rest. To assume that you are being spiritually attacked when something normal happens to you is absolutely ridiculous! Do spiritual attacks happen? Absolutely yes. We are in a spiritual battle every day of our lives. But when you hear hoofbeats, think horses. Not zebras. (Unless you're on an African safari.)

This book just seemed totally irrational to me. Does faith sometimes seem irrational? Yes, it can seem so at times when we put our faith in what is unseen. But I rely on the common sense and logical reasoning that God gave me to discern what is worthy of close attention and spiritual intervention, and what is simply a human pattern that can be dismissed as normal.

This book was boring and long-winded. Every chapter took forever to get to the point.
I also did not care for Dickens and Wilkie Collins as the main characters. They were not exactly nice people in real life and this book accurately reflects that. They both have mistresses/lovers who feature in the story, and there are some descriptions of less-than-savory venues like an opium den with whores. Since I was already bored, I just didn't want to read about all that.
I find it very strange that with all the content warning labels available on StoryGraph, "adultery" is not one of them. 

DNF at page 92
I found the plot really slow and boring. I didn’t like any of the characters. There was some profanity that got on my nerves.

I couldn't take all the nastiness in this book. There's underage children buying and selling drugs, doing drugs, gambling, cursing, smoking, drinking alcohol, sleeping around. There's a lot of sexual harassment, and several F-bombs. 
So disappointed in this book.

I really wanted to like this book, since I have read other books by this author that I have loved. However, there is a lot of violence, and references to sex, and a very young prostitute has a botched abortion and requires surgery for a hysterectomy. It's really graphic and blood and guts everywhere. I just couldn't handle all that.

Also I didn't like how the narrative switches from the lawyer character and then to a journal written by Queen Victoria. That was really weird and slowed down the plot.

I got really tired of having to wade through the political relationships between everyone. Each character has a royal title, and their official name, and their nickname. Without a character list, it was difficult to keep track of everyone.

I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't like Inda. I didn't care about all the political this and that.

I read some other reviews that mentioned several triggers, including violence and a child's death, so I decided that it's just not for me.

They say never meet your heroes, because they have feet of clay. I wish I'd never started reading this book. I love Wilkie Collins' books, but the man himself was a pervert. He had a couple of different mistresses and never married, and I just got tired of hearing about his sexual exploits and his flirtations. Really gross.

I think from now on, I will give up on trying to read author biographies, because they are usually not very nice people, and it ruins my enjoyment of their books. I would rather just enjoy the art and not know anything about the artist.

DNF at page 80
I knew that this was a graphic novel about a really bad guy, but wow. It's all alcohol and prostitution and kidnapping and murder and violence and guns. This book does not gloss over the ugliness.
There is a lot of nasty profanity and graphic violence, and I just couldn't stomach it anymore. Horrid.