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deyanira's review against another edition
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide
Moderate: Violence, Murder, and Sexism
maidofbees's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.5
I really liked this book! It had a lot of classic fantasy tropes but I think it used them well, and I was very entertained throughout. I am keen to read the next in the series!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Violence, and Death of parent
Minor: Sexism
aaren's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
slow-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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcohol and Suicide
Minor: Death of parent
brekas91's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Abandonment, Grief, Death of parent, Gore, Suicide, Classism, Blood, and Alcohol
k_anin_chen's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
sollie's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-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? Yes
5.0
Content warnings below.
This book was massive, but all intimidation wore off as soon as I started listening. Masterfully paced, this sets up a small-scale beginning with a sense of a world larger than life and gets you into the action and the immersive environments really quickly (I remember feeling like I was playing Octopath Traveler and that is always a good sign). It throws you for a few loops, and although the Lord of the Rings-inspiration is palpable at times, I never felt like it was unoriginal or less fun because of it (for anyone familiar with the "holy shit, two cakes!!"-meme, that basically explains my point of view), and hell, the last third of this book is a swashbuckling heist! A really good time for the most part. I liked the take on moral ambiguity and the great character consistency. The weakest points were the on-the-nose explanations of character motivation (and repetition of phrases like one character has a sentence that is repeated time and time again), but it can be forgiven in the grand scheme of things. Overall an epic fantasy reading experience worth the density of the book.
Cw: Depicted suicide. Near-drowning. Claustrophobic situations.
This book was massive, but all intimidation wore off as soon as I started listening. Masterfully paced, this sets up a small-scale beginning with a sense of a world larger than life and gets you into the action and the immersive environments really quickly (I remember feeling like I was playing Octopath Traveler and that is always a good sign). It throws you for a few loops, and although the Lord of the Rings-inspiration is palpable at times, I never felt like it was unoriginal or less fun because of it (for anyone familiar with the "holy shit, two cakes!!"-meme, that basically explains my point of view), and hell, the last third of this book is a swashbuckling heist! A really good time for the most part. I liked the take on moral ambiguity and the great character consistency. The weakest points were the on-the-nose explanations of character motivation (and repetition of phrases like one character has a sentence that is repeated time and time again), but it can be forgiven in the grand scheme of things. Overall an epic fantasy reading experience worth the density of the book.
Cw: Depicted suicide. Near-drowning. Claustrophobic situations.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
Moderate: Confinement
britreads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I found the first couple hundred of this novel to be interesting, engaging and tense. I thoroughly enjoyed Cade and Aren's friendship and most of the characters were endearing in the beginning. Once the story moved through the Skavengard section, I found the story to lag and the character became irritating. I also found the tone to be weird. It felt like Wooding wanted to build a tense, serious scene and then a character (usually Grub or Cade) would make a joke and that reduced the tension. While I like long stories and plan to read several lengthy novels later this year, I felt this was too long and should have been cut down. I really didn't enjoy the love triangle between Fen-Cade-Aren and I didn't enjoy the building romance between Fen and Aren. I didn't see what they liked about the other. They were just a boy and girl around the same age and thus it was romance by proximity instead of genuine feelings. Also Mara's motivation being feminism in this world didn't work for me since she was focused on how Krodan society kept HER down, instead of all women. It was very much 'White Feminism' and I found her annoying. All in all, I think this is a decent fantasy and I mostly enjoyed my time reading this. I may check out the sequel, though I don't feel a pressing need to run out and read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Gore, Suicide, Violence, Body horror, Colonisation, and Death
shouq's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-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? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
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