Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas

10 reviews

florecita_lectora's review

adventurous dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Police brutality

j92's review

adventurous emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

I do love the crescent city series. Still processing this book to be honest

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Content Warnings

Minor: Grief, War, Xenophobia, Violence, and Sexism

bluehouseonthesalishsea's review

adventurous 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Torture, Death, Confinement, Gore, Grief, War, Violence, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Kidnapping, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, and Blood

Moderate: Sexual assault

naomi_'s review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Sexism, Rape, Physical abuse, Murder, Kidnapping, Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Violence, Blood, Death, Vomit, Grief, War, Xenophobia, Torture, Slavery, Sexual content, and Confinement

maureen_fox's review

At approximately 1/4-1/3 of the way through the story, I stopped caring. It felt like nothing was happening except a lot of swearing in the dungeons of the Eternal Palace and the Viper Queen's place on Midgard. The protracted magical info dump of Bryce's ancestor detailing how their people came to Midgard had me rolling my eyes. I don't care about the CC characters enough to continue. SJM better step it up majorly for the next ACOTAR book, because she's hanging on by a thread for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Torture

Moderate: Sexual violence

Minor: Xenophobia

shaylatrumpower's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I was immensely disappointed by this book. I've struggled with Maas for a bit after learning about a lot of her behaviors but wanted to finish out this series as House of Earth and Blood was a catalyst for re-igniting my love for reading. However Mass fully destroyed what made the first installment of this series interesting. 

Bryce's character development was completed assassinated. She went from my favorite character to someone I could barely stand. She become vapid, selfish, and completely obsessed with her own specialness. Her treatment of Hunt was appalling. 

The "spicy" scenes felt like she only wrote them because that's what she's become known for. They were generic and had no emotional depth. 

The climax felt like I was just reading ACOWAR again and I knew that Bryce would "almost die" only to be saved by some deus ex machina. 
I will not be reading any further money grabbing installments to this series or really anything else of Maas' at this point.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Sexual content, Sexism, Xenophobia, and Violence

indusnm's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The first half of the book was five stars for me, but the second half was three, so it averages out to a four. This was my favorite of the three and probably one of my favorite of this author. I liked a lot of it.

PROS
I liked a lot of the final pairings. I'm not sure how a few will work out, but I look forward to finding out. I also liked the way the final battle is shown from so many points of view and how everyone had a role. I appreciate the way the universes combine and the smut to plot ratio felt right. No love scenes came out of left field and they seemed to take into account the exhaustion and pain characters felt.

CONS
While everyone had a role, it felt like by the end most of the roles could be distilled to delivery person and distraction. I mean yes, they saved each other, but honestly it felt like Bryce could have done this on her own with her battery dude and then none of them would have been in danger. To use a Harry Potter reference (I know, canceled, but like it or not everyone reading this will get the reference) it's as if Bryce was Harry, Hermione, Dumbledore, and Neville all at once. She's even Ron as comic relief, except his one-liners were mostly funny and she gets a little annoying. All in all, it feels like lazy writing to have one person able to do everything better than everyone else.

She's also terrible and manipulative with a lot of people. Her character arc is in many ways the least traumatic- she grows up with loving parents, her biological father is much more horrible to her sibling, and in a lot of ways she escapes the most horrific moments and leaving people she loves to endure those moments doesn't seem to give her much pause. This might be why she shows no sympathy to those who need time to deal with it. Being called a misogynistic slur isn't akin to being physically tortured day in and day out for years.

So 4 stars, and I very much enjoyed reading it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Xenophobia, Gun violence, and Sexual content

Moderate: Addiction and Drug use

Also after this book, [I'm even more confused by what she did with "Cooper." First of all, why would she leave him with the Viper Queen? I wouldn't leave a virtual pet with that woman let alone an actual child. What kind of adult leaves a child with a woman who has no issues preying on barely legal young people and controls them with drugs ( I'm not sure how potent those drugs are given that Therion ditches them easily but still!)? And then how are we supposed to buy that she thinks of him as a brother when Bryce ditches him, a child who has escaped years of captivity and the death of his entire family, alone at a refugee camp on an island? Not that her parents seem too worried about that either. Poor kid. And then all the love for Lidia and the way she gets mad at Ruhn for his judgment. I have a hard time getting over the fact that she tortured and killed people for a long time. Who do romantasy authors act like it's okay to forgive war crimes just because you love the person? I think it's because theyre too privileged to actually identify with the victims

sarahtaymo's review

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual violence, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Torture, Physical abuse, Racism, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, Murder, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Slavery, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Sexism, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment

unsuccessfulbookclub's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

4.25

Maybe my fave SJM to date? The characters really GO THROUGH IT but the moral and ethical dilemmas as well as social and political commentary are far more complex and deeper than prior books/series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Murder, War, Domestic abuse, Xenophobia, Blood, Child death, Gore, Medical trauma, Death, and Body horror

Moderate: Pregnancy

thekayles's review

adventurous challenging emotional informative mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Xenophobia, Gun violence, and War

Moderate: Sexual assault