Reviews with content warning for Murder - Reign of the Fallen

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh

3 reviews

froukjemelenhorst's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

If you like this book pls leave cuz I cannot hold anything back lol

The way that it only took me like 3 days to read this, but I still suffered every minute of it. Presenting: my list of grievances, ranging from personal icks to actual criticisms lmao.

1. All the names in this book are so dumb: Evander, Simeon, Cymbre, Hadrien, Meredy, Elibeth??

2. Why name your mc Odessa when you’re only calling her by her nickname ‘Sparrow’ (the reason for which was really dumb) throughout the entire book?

3. All the relationships, both platonic and romantic, were so incredibly forced and the characters had zero chemistry with each other. Girlypop meets a princess for her regular job and the next day the princess basically acts like her and Odessa are best friends? Odessa spends the majority of this book mourning her boyfriend Evander’s death, when their scenes together (when they had any) were mostly during their working hours and very boring and did not really show why they loved each other so much. It’s just said that they are, but it is never really shown that much. Then afterwards Odessa falls in love with her boyfriend’s sister(??), when they also have zero chemistry and spend most of their time together either bickering or talking about missing Evander. Odessa just suddenly wanted to kiss Meredy out of nowhere and then the next chapter claims that she cares about her so much when they barely had any scenes together where their bonding was shown.

4. There was a quote about Odessa’s ‘reasoning’ for ‘being in love’ with Meredy that just grossed me out tf: ‘Some part of me wishes there was time to kiss her firmly set mouth (?gurl?), to finish what we started and see if it’s something I’d want to do again. To see if she tastes like Evander, or if there’s something distinct about Meredy that’s making me crave her like this.’ gUrL? R u telling me that the only reason you want to kiss her is to see whether she reminds you of your deceased boyfriend? THERAPY

5. The story was all over the place, yet everything still managed to be extremely boring, since the author does not know how to make her characters interesting. This moment they're searching for the Shade that killed Evander, then we're searching for the person who is training Shades, then we're quickly getting rid of an addiction, back to searching for the Shade-trainer again, now we're going on a trip to a random city to kill Shades. WhAt dO YoU WANT?

6. The Dead are veiled, because as soon as even 1 mm of skin is exposed they turn into these monsters – Shades – that attack anything and anyone. Why, in good conscience, would ANYONE want to raise the dead when basically one gust of wind could determine the safety of everyone in the world?

7. Odessa developed an addiction to this potion after Evander’s death, which was slightly interesting, but the author introduces it and then wraps it up very quickly and afterwards it barely impacts Odessa anymore. She gets the addiction, Valoria (the princess) basically says ‘fuck that’, binds her to her bed for a week without access to the potion, and a week after Odessa is cured and can merrily continue her adventure. It barely affects her afterward at all, which is not really realistic.

8. The book was so very predictable, to the point it was actually painful to see all the characters being that dumb, especially Odessa. The second Hadrien showed up I immediately knew he was the bad guy, because it was just that obvious. He is the first, living, heir in line for the throne, the country is being ruled by the same king who’s been dead for 200 years, and monsters suddenly start attacking royalty and the ghost-royalty mysteriously disappear. The scene that truly aggravated me was after the king disappeared and Hadrien asked Odessa to be his second-in-command and ordered her -the (allegedly) BEST necromancer- to go to this random city while the king is missing. All the while the queen wants Odessa to stay and look for her husband. Hadrien gets very pushy during this conversation. Then AFTER the conversation Meredy comes to see Odessa to tell her that Hadrien was lying about his whereabouts at the moment the king went missing. And Odessa still thinks Hadrien is fine because ‘he would never do something like this’. And once they are on their way to the city they get a message that the queen is missing AND SHE STILL DOES NOT PUT IT TOGETHER

9. A moment of messy writing/world-building: Odessa has been around royals for more than a decade and has a place of residence in the palace. When Hadrien asks her to be his ‘Serpent’ (his second-in-command) her response is ‘Your… what?’ Why does she not know what that is? All of her colleagues know what it is. How come the best necromancer around does not know what this is? This could have been fixed so easily. It could have been explained to the reader via e.g. Odessa explaining it through internal monologue or Hadrien explaining it by interrupting her like: [Odessa] ‘Your-‘ [Hadrien] ‘Yes, as my second in command you’d be/have …’ Having to explain what the ‘Serpent’ is by having Odessa ask what it is makes Odessa look really dumb and does not fit her character’s status and just makes for shitty worldbuilding/writing.

10. Your eye color determines your magic ability.

11. The necromancers in this book basically have 2 jobs: raising the dead and killing/protecting people from the Shades. Please tell me why literally almost every single one of the necromancers in this book are very easily killed by Shades? Chapter 1 (or 2?) ends with a master necromancer dying because of a Shade. Odessa’s boyfriend dies from a Shade sneaking up on him. Odessa is recruited to a city where the 8 resident necromancers are ALL killed by like 3 of these monsters.

12. Apparently grizzly bears can pick locks now?

13. Once Hadrien is revealed he does 2 dumb things:
a. He tries to appeal to his people by explaining his reasoning and turning the captured ghost-royalty into Shades to further his point. He then decides to RELEASE the Shades which then go around killing his people. It is said that apparently Hadrien does not care for his people, but ya know, wouldn’t it be a good idea to, idk, have the people you’re going to rule on YOUR SIDE?
b. He manages to capture Odessa and plans to kill her. She literally has nowhere to go. He then orders her dead boyfriend’s mother (who is a lady of status and has NEVER killed ANYONE) to get rid of her… yeah… that’ll work out.

14. There was this really dumb scene which made me cry with laughter where Meredy and Odessa are ‘bonding’ by trauma dumping through archery practice. Meredy: *pew* I hate that my brother’s dead! Odessa: *pew* I hate that my boyfriend’s mom hates me! Meredy *pew* I am not what my mother wanted me to be. Dude whyyyy

I would like to end this review by sharing some quotes that made me either cringe or were just plain dumb 😊

‘ “Help me look for Master Cymbre!” […] “I would, if I could keep my eyes off you.” ‘ - p. 68

‘I may not be able to save anyone, living or Dead. But beating stuffed dummies with a wooden practice sword? No man or beast in Karthia can stop me from making the straw fly.’ - p. 268

‘My lips burn at the betrayal of sharing breaths with her.’ – p. 275

‘Of course Hadrien’s in there, the arrogant boy who thinks himself a king. But king is more than just a title, and while he can call himself whatever he pleases, he’ll never rule the hearts or minds of Karthia.’ – p. 342

Content Warnings

readandfindout's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.75

Style/writing: 2 stars
Themes: 2.5 stars
Characters: 1 star
Plot: 1.5 stars
Worldbuilding: 2 stars

Content Warnings

foreverinastory's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

4.5/5

I'm so glad I reread this!! Loved it so much.

Rep: Bisexual female MC, male love interest, sapphic female love interest (lesbian coded), gay male side character, achillean male side character, BIPOC side characters.

CWs: Addiction, blood, death, death of partner, drug abuse, fire/fire injury, grief, injury/injury detail, medical content, murder, suicidal thoughts, violence. Moderate: alcohol consumption, body horror, confinement, cursing, gore, forced withdrawal from drugs.
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3.5/5

I'm still like super conflicted about this book. I did enjoy it, but I am having a hard time rating that enjoyment. This was an enjoyable book, I liked the world and the characters. However, the narrator really sucked at male voices and they sounded so weird. But I loved her voice for everyone else.

I liked Odessa for most part, except when she drowned her grief in calming tonics. And she was like I'm fine, I'm fine as she has constant delusions. Yeah okay girl. I loved that the supporting cast had some extra diversity as well. I really loved Simeon. Valoria was such an amazing character and friend to Odessa--which she probably didn't deserve but that's because Valoria is precious. I loved how she was an inventor and how she wanted to explore magic for science.

The plot was a bit predictable after about 50%, but I still enjoyed the story. I think the characters and world-building made up for it. I'm really curious as to what the sequel could be about since this wrapped up pretty nicely.

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