Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Serpent and the Wings of Night

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Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent

414 reviews

grace_b_3's review against another edition

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I decided not to finish this because I just didn’t care, about the characters, about the world, about anything.

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barbarianmissy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.5

4.5 ⭐️s

Side note: so the more books I read, the more I look back and realize I rated a lot of previous books WAY too high. (Most of my 5 star reads were more so 4 stars, but crazy lil Miss ME got really excited about the endings and bumped that shit up to a 5 star cause I rate them immediately after I finish them……..which I probably will not stop doing 💁‍♀️)

BUT I feel confident in rating this one a 4.5!

This was like a spicy grown up Twilight Hunger Games, where Bella could kick ASS and Charlie sucked ASS. Edward was still only ~kind of~ a ginger.

I had a lot of fun!

I really liked the banter between Oraya and Raihn but I swear to Nyaxia, if he told her “there she is” one more time I was gonna throw the book across the room. It was cute the first 20 times, but not so cute after you brutally murdered her beloved papa in front of her. Anywho, I liked their dynamic. I like that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows with them. There’s a love/hate element that is really push and pull and keeps me on my toes. I LIKE EM!

Mische (aka Alice Cullen) was a really neat character! I hope they explore her more in this series! I also hope her god stops being a nasty and gives her her cool flames back!

I’m curious how the rest of the story will play out. Seems like we are moving from Hunger Games territory into a political wartime strategy plotline and I think I will kind of LIVE for it????? Idk though.

I wanna read the next one but the paperback doesn’t come out till December and I think I may wait, but I suck at waiting so I may choose otherwise and load up the kindle! We shall SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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black_cat_iiix's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? Yes

3.5

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samchase112's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Solid romantasy that had me turning the pages and eager to read the sequel. I don’t think this one will stick with me for years — Oraya and Raihn aren’t at Mortal Instruments levels (my og romantasy love) for me, and I just really don’t love first person — but this was such a good time! And who doesn’t love a lot of fun, a brutally violent competition, and some intriguing world-building :)

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boredreading's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful 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

4.75

I really like the story building, the way the word and rooms and battles are described.

Classic enemies to loves.

I often found my self fully emerged in the book and the characters, unable to put the book down.

4.75 out of 5 purely because of the rushed ending but absolutely recommend

MASSIVE END SPOILERS
I found that the ending was very fast pasted and ended almost a bit sloppy,

she killed him, she brought him back, he killed her dad, kidnapped her, married her explained everything the end. All with in the last like 20 pages.

Am I am excited to read th3 next book in the series.

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chapters_and_pages's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging 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

5.0

I’d never heard of this book before but when I came across it while browsing Amazon, as you do, I was very intrigued.

Oraya is the human daughter of the Nightborn vampire king. Growing up as a human surrounded by vampires, she has always felt like the prey. Entering the Kejari, a legendary tournament hosted by the goddess of death, is her only chance to become more. But with her opponents being some of the most vicious vampires, winning is easier said than done. Forced to make an alliance with a ruthless and mysterious rival, Raihn is her biggest competition, but she can’t help the drawn she feels towards him.

Firstly, I loved Oraya! We love a badass who is strong, fierce and independent, who doesn’t let her weaknesses define her - I mean, she can hold her own against vampires, for crying out loud. I love Raihn as well, he was kind of adorable, and his relationship with Mische was really cute.

Oraya and Raihn may be one of my favourite couples, I loved the mix of enemies to lovers and grumpy/sunshine. Their chemistry and partnership gave me similar vibes to a Sarah J. Maas book in the best way possible! I did unfortunately read a spoiler about the ending (iykyk), so that wasn’t a surprise for me, but I do think it would’ve be had I not accident read the spoiler.

I also really liked the relationship between Oraya and Vincent. I’m currently wondering if how everything ended with Vincent isn’t all it seems and that there may be a twist in book 2, because he truly seemed to love and care for Oraya as a daughter.

In terms of the plot and storytelling, the world was interesting but not overly complicated, which is always a bonus for me. The plot was intense and action packed, and at no point did it drag.

Overall, this book is probably one of my favourites that I’ve read this year and can’t wait to read the next one!

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corinalannister_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

A series of deadly trials, sort of similar to Powerless and The Hunger Games but add more death and more vampires.

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mo_reads6's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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merries's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

“Do you want to change this world, little serpent? Then climb your cage until you are so high no one can catch you.”

I was never one to dabble in the Romantasy genre until this year, when I decided that for the sake of my mental health, I needed a break from the Literary Fiction cave I’d found myself dwelling in. I had, of course, picked up a few Romantasy books on a whim whenever I’d been book shopping, this book being one of them, and out of all of the plots this one seemed the most engaging to someone not entirely used to the genre.

Now, coming from a background of Literary Fiction and existential dread, I like my books to have substance, a hint of morally dubious behaviour, and sometimes eye candy. I will say this book met, in my opinion, two of those criteria. Controversially, I found this book to have a degree of substance in the sprinkling of political world-building, morally dubious behaviour in terms of immense daddy issues, but the eye candy was... lacking for me. Perhaps that’s because ripped to fuck redheads aren’t my type (no offence).

Delving into the serious part of this review, I’ll cover four topics: world-building; characters; pace; writing.

World-building: 3 stars.

I get confused easily. And, when listening to the audiobook while reading the actual, physical book, I found myself having to pause and just sit, wondering “Has this bit been explained to me yet?”. I know this is technically a series, while simultaneously a duology (can we class it as that?), and that I can’t expect everything to be explained to me instantly, but I feel this book should have had a glossary of some kind like others I’ve picked up pre and post this series.

Characters: 4 stars.

Overall, I found the characters pretty interesting. I will say that Mische is not interesting enough to me for me to pick up the third book in the series straight away, but Raihn and Oraya were intriguing. Plus, daddy issues. What can go wrong?

I will say that I found the daddy issues more interesting of a dynamic than Raihn and Oraya wanting to slurp each other’s blood every fifty pages, but hey. I do also feel that, for an enemies to lovers romance, the enemies section didn’t ‘enemy’ enough for me to root for them as lovers, but the plot twist at the end of this book built up that intrigue again heading into The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King.

Pace: 3 stars.

The pace was pretty consistent, however I feel like this book both suffers from being 100 pages too long and 100 pages too short. There were a few moments that I didn’t feel were important enough to be included, but there were characters like Ibrahim who I just genuinely did not care for, so when a certain scene towards the end of the book happens, I was too indifferent to react.

Furthermore, I remember at one point there being a two week time skip which ended up with “Oh by the way, Raihn and I are a bit more chill with each other now” and I felt that was a massive injustice to their dynamic.

Writing: 2 stars.

This is not me saying the writing is bad, by any means. There were some moments I found interesting and the action scenes on the whole were done well. My main critiques are towards some rather peculiar moments, and the fact that some of the dialogue made me want to curl up into a ball and roll down a hill.

Examples include:

“I’d wondered about it at first, especially since vampires fucked like rabbits...and Raihn looked like he was probably very good at sex.” (How does someone just give off 10/10 bedroom energy? Enlighten me.)

“’I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t here to win,’” he said, somewhat apologetically, before he hurled a fucking star at me.” (Oraya’s inner monologue does sometimes read like a child who has learned the word ‘fuck’ for the first time.)

“’I know some vampires have a taste for human sex, but-’ ’Vincent is my father,’ I cut in, disgusted. ‘Right. At least if he was fucking you, I could make sense of it.’” (I know I said daddy issues was the more interesting dynamic, but... not like this.)

“We stayed off to the side-far away from the borderline-orgy that was happening in the centre of the room, which would have been a very awkward place to be with my father.” (I feel like I can’t explain this. It just gave me the ick.)

Overall rating: 3.5 stars.

I did enjoy this book; it was a nice 500-something page palette cleanser, and I did start the second book immediately after reading the first, but the writing and just my brain being confused does bring the rating down overall to a 3.5. If you want to read this book, just don’t take it too seriously! The real fun comes from when you realise that this book is a tad goofy – intentional or not.

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adri11's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

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