Reviews

The Broken Tower: A Novel by Kelly Braffet

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o_ambrogio's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

4.5

hazelmerevandran's review against another edition

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5.0

4.5 Yes, we all love Judah... but Elly deserves all the hugs, oh and Gavin could use an ice pack.

acurtis5's review against another edition

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5.0

Another wonderful addition to the series. I did not think that the world could get much more complex or beautifully developed, and yet it did. Judah's powers only grew more intense, and that was wonderful to witness. I love that this book has commentary on the government and how societies should be run--if we really look into it, it is very much so a critique of a awfully set-up socialist/communist system. It also has a lot to say about gender politics and the role of women (with a couple of nods to queer folk) within a society, which I particularly appreciated and feld they added a ton to the complexity of the story. My only qualm--we cut off right before the *big ending.* I know we are probably building to a third book but I was left so unsatisfied and wondering, like what the heck. Very intrigued to see where a third book will go.

violetrage's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.5

Strong female characters that are not sexualized. This is almost, but not quite, grimdark. No sexual assault in this series so far, which is cool.

Love the cast of characters and the magic system. Looking forward to book 3.

lookingforamandaa's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5 stars
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Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this advanced ebook in exchange for an honest review.
The Broken Tower follows the four characters that we got to know in the first book: Gavin, Elly, Judah, and Theron. But we start to follow a few others as well. I don’t know if it’s because we’re following so many different characters, or if it was just intended to be a more character focused than plot focused story, but I cannot give an accurate summary because literally nothing happened. Basically all of the characters were kidnapped and abused by one group of people or another at some point in this story. Some for a few days and other for most of the book. Judah learned more about her powers, but not really. She figured out on her own how to use her abilities in different ways from what she was taught in the first book, but none of it was explained really at all. Gavin just lets himself get abused and beat for most of the book and weirdly, so did Nate. The only characters that I actually liked in this book were Bindy (though I think she was dumb as heck for being so loyal to Nate) and Elly, who finally stands up to her brothers after once again letting them mistreat and abuse her.
I think the world is incredibly depressing, but also really well built and explained. We get to see more of the world because several of the characters are outside of Highfall. I liked seeing and learning about other parts of this world, but I’m frustrated that it didn’t seem to add anything to push the plot of this story forward. It felt like this was just more build up and getting things in place for a big conclusion while getting to know the characters even more.
Overall, I was a bit disappointed. After the big ending of the first book, I was excited to see what Gavin and Judah were going to do next. But they didn’t actually do anything. They just got ready to do things. The story was slow but I liked the characters enough that I was invested in what was going to happen to them. I think if you like character focused stories and fantasy books, you will absolutely enjoy this series.