Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Golden Son by Pierce Brown

21 reviews

followerofselena's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Gaslighting, War, Blood, Cursing, and Slavery

linneak's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring tense 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Genocide, Physical abuse, Violence, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Slavery, Gore, Blood, Death, Grief, Torture, Classism, War, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Murder, and Toxic friendship

4ny's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, War, Xenophobia, Violence, and Torture

kiwij96's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

The political worldbuilding of this series is honestly stunning. I'm so glad that the second book distanced itself from the educational Hunger Games-ness of the first book because at times that was stagnant. But this was so much easier to read. So much happened in these 450ish pages that I don't even know where to begin.

Falling out of touch with friends, betrayal, plot twists which I didn't see coming but thought worked for the characters. It was all so perfectly chaotic I loved it. That ending was a stroke of genius.

Two gripes:
1. The first 6 chapters could have been a prologue just to catch us up on Darrow's life since book 1 since a couple of years have passed. It also felt a bit clunky at the start.
2. I have literally no idea what any of the things are which confuses me sometimes - like what is a ripWing, or a HC, or an anything?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, War, Murder, Classism, Sexual assault, Torture, Death, Child death, Colonisation, Death of parent, Rape, and Slavery

Minor: Suicide and Pregnancy

haley49's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.75

…I’m traumatized with that ending. What

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, War, Sexual violence, Death, Murder, Child death, Cursing, and Violence

Moderate: Slavery, Colonisation, Trafficking, Blood, Body horror, Vomit, Child abuse, Genocide, Torture, Classism, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, and Physical abuse

Minor: Cannibalism and Rape

zephyrscape's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Now, I have no problem with sad books. I have absolutely enjoyed being wrecked by books before. But in order for that to happen for me, there needs to be enough happy or heartwarming or moving material between the sad parts for me to actually build up an attachment to characters. And in Golden Son, the vast majority of those sorts of moments between sad events are instead subbed out for action sequences where Darrow is angsting over his choices and the world he lives in. Maybe this will work for you if you get a thrill from battle sequences. But it didn't work for me. It left me with a sour taste in my mouth as the book hammered me again and again and again with things that I think were meant to shock and upset me, but only ended up annoying me. I kept internally snapping, "I *know* we can't have nice things, you've already said as much several times!"

The stars I'm giving this book are for the quality of the prose, which is admittedly quite good, and also for fleshing out some of the story's female characters in a way that I felt was missing in book one, which I did appreciate. But I finished this book without the enjoyment of a new idea to chew on and in a markedly worse mood than when I started it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Vomit, Violence, and War

Minor: Torture

theintrovertsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Classism, Cursing, Death, Murder, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Death of parent, Gore, Mass/school shootings, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Physical abuse, Torture, Child death, Classism, Grief, Medical content, Rape, Sexual content, Slavery, Abandonment, and Kidnapping

Minor: Sexism, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Trafficking, War, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Rape, Hate crime, Mental illness, Cannibalism, Colonisation, Excrement, and Genocide

surdiablo's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-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

One of the best page-turners I have ever read ( finished it in less than 2 days ) and it's a massive improvement over it's predecessor in every way! The writing is evidently more polished and flows even better, characters are much more interesting and develops further

especially the protagonist who is vulnerable and learns humility

, and the pacing remains fast with plenty of nail-biting moments, but I didn't find it jarring at all like the last time. What I loved most is the

moral conflicts that arise and how the protagonist has to go back and forth dealing with them. Sure, he's still pretty strong and things tend to go his way for the most part, but he's also overestimating himself and starting to pay the price, especially considering the cliffhanger ending that gave me heart palpitations.

Now, I don't think it's a perfect book and and I could certainly nitpick about a couple of things if I think hard, like

fallopian tubes and DNA compatibility

, but I honestly don't care about such things and can easily handwave it as 'futuristic tech'. 🤷‍♂️ I just couldn't put this book down for the last two days and I loved pretty much everything that happened in it with zero annoyance, so that easily makes it one of my favorites of all time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, and War

Moderate: Torture

fierymoon's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.75

my jaw is on the ground

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, and Violence

Moderate: Slavery, Torture, and Blood

Minor: Sexual content and Cannibalism

joshoonet's review against another edition

adventurous tense fast-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

4.0

• I had a bit if a hard time getting into this book, mostly because the feeling of having to read another ~1200 pages to finish the series was kind of daunting
• But then I ended up finishing the majority of the book in one day, so it was absolutely captivating!
• Almost as good as the first one, but of course higher stakes and more complicated politics
• Lost focus a bit during the big fighting bits
• Love how nothing is ever quite how it seems, everyone is scheming all the time
• Starting the third book immediately!

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Vomit, Cursing, Murder, and Kidnapping

Minor: Child abuse, Genocide, Torture, and Excrement

War and pretty much all the violent and gory stuff:

well, there's war breaking out. A shit ton of people die in quick or gruesome ways, sometimes it's described in detail, sometimes not.

Vomit:

a couple of times someone has to vomit after experiencing a lot of physical turbulence aka being jiggled around. It's gross, but not overly graphic.

Kidnapping:

a child is getting kidnapped by the main characters for a short amount of time. It doesn't get harmed and doesn't seem terribly disturbed by the while thing.