Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

The Fever King by Victoria Lee

9 reviews

yedikedi2k03's review

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Racism, Religious bigotry, Torture, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Child abuse, Murder, Police brutality, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Ableism, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Cursing, Confinement, Animal death, Antisemitism, Blood, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, Vomit, Violence, Classism, Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, War, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Genocide, Xenophobia, Addiction, Alcohol, Child death, Death, Medical content, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Deportation, and Eating disorder

melodyseestrees's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Adult/minor relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Xenophobia, Suicide, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Medical content, and Drug use

Minor: Racism, Sexual harassment, Pedophilia, Child death, Rape, Death of parent, and Vomit

Early on in the book there is a somewhat graphic depiction of dying and decaying bodies. There is casual drug abuse, specifically alcohol and cocaine. Several people are dying in a hospital-like setting and the process is described in detail at least once.

owenblacker's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

 The Fever King is a YA dystopian postapocalyptic m/m romance, also about race & immigration. I’ll quote the blurb directly:

In the former United States, 16-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense [and founding revolutionary leader of the state] and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks — refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son — cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful — and the way forward becomes less clear.

Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.

I quite enjoyed the book — the storyline was interesting enough and the characters are engaging and faceted without being too irritating, which I can sometimes find a problem with YA if I’m not in quite the right mood. But it definitely suffered from me reading it immediately after Mira Grant and I had forgotten quite how much I love her work.

CN list from the author: violence, intergenerational trauma and genocide, immigration, abuse, parental death, death of a child, mental health and suicide, slut-shaming, ableist language, drug and alcohol abuse, emetophobia. More details on her website. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, War, and Xenophobia

CN list from the author: violence, intergenerational trauma and genocide, immigration, abuse, parental death, death of a child, mental health and suicide, slut-shaming, ableist language, drug and alcohol abuse, emetophobia. More details on her website: https://victorialeewrites.com/the-fever-king-content-warnings/

tkhenry99's review

4.0

A strong start to 2022! I don’t usually go for sci-fi very often, so I appreciated the simple and straightforward sciencey parts. I feel like a lot of sci-fi is overly complicated or just skips the explanations entirely. Dara and Noam were great characters, but I wish their relationship had been fleshed out a bit more. I could maybe maybe understand why Dara is so insta-lovey but Noam really didn’t seem to have much of a connection with him besides thinking he’s hot. It did tend to be pretty predictable

(you can see mind control coming from the very beginning)

and some parts felt underdeveloped.

Dara and Ames are both addicts, but somehow it doesn’t seem to actually affect them/their health/wellbeing/powers? And Dara being raped by Ames’s dad for years was a weird inclusion…… especially to turn around and have him go “I did it as a political thing” without any additional explanation……

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Death, Hate crime, Racism, Suicide, and Xenophobia

Minor: Child death, Drug use, Pedophilia, Rape, Vomit, War, and Genocide

peachani's review against another edition

tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Medical trauma, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pedophilia, Rape, Terminal illness, War, and Xenophobia

Minor: Abandonment, Antisemitism, Cursing, Incest, Infidelity, Sexual content, Torture, and Vomit

cindythenerd's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Violence, Genocide, Death of parent, Child death, Mental illness, Vomit, Drug use, Alcohol, Body horror, Murder, Cursing, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Xenophobia, Pedophilia, Rape, Torture, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Body shaming

Minor: Addiction and Suicide

xoodlebooks's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Violence, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Genocide, Mental illness, Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Eating disorder, Xenophobia, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Kidnapping

Minor: Antisemitism, Torture, Medical trauma, Ableism, Chronic illness, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Racism

oliverthegame's review

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, and Suicide

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Vomit, Pedophilia, Rape, Grief, and Drug use

booksthatburn's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

THE FEVER KING was engrossing, pulling me into the story as it stayed tightly wound around the MC’s unreliable narration. It introduced a lot of characters early on but then only really focused on a couple of them, breaking my early expectations for this as a "group of kids with powers bond in training story". It's definitely not that. They have powers, they have training, there are bonds, but being an immigrant who joins the clique late in a post-nuclear-event dystopian society with an immortal(?) leader who is the only one who remembers the history does not for a fun time make. What it does create is space for a quieter story about grooming, manipulation, brainwashing, and abuse in a situation where powers are secret, magic requires complex and detailed understanding, and the gatekeepers to knowledge also run the country. 

This book is definitely the "throw the reader in the world and they'll figure it out" kind of book. There are sections that explain how things connect and the implications of them, but they're woven in naturally as the character figures things out. Even the few infodumps which happen are telling the MC things they didn't know, or them thinking about stuff the secondary characters don't know, but in a way that informs the reader without feeling patronizing. What the MC notices and comments on it sometimes less important than what he dismisses or downplays, creating this feeling that while he's not trying to lie to the reader, he's also not picking up on things or not realizing their importance. This definitely feels like a book where a bunch of hints were there all along and then the end makes their importance suddenly resonant.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Animal death, Genocide, and Xenophobia

Minor: Child abuse, Incest, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, and Vomit

CW for xenophobia, genocide, vomit, animal death, plague, grooming, incest (not depicted), child sexual abuse (not depicted), suicide (backstory), torture (backstory), gun violence, parental death, child death, major character death, death.