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risten's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Confinement, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Death, Racism, Violence, Child death, Gore, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Police brutality, Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Torture, Classism, War, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Animal death, Vomit, Excrement, and Misogyny
bree_h_reads's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
2.0
Graphic: Death, Murder, Torture, Blood, Violence, and Confinement
Moderate: Slavery, Child abuse, Hate crime, Child death, Genocide, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual violence
good_names_dont_exist's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Torture, Death, Murder, Blood, and Violence
Moderate: Grief, Toxic relationship, and Slavery
Minor: Sexual violence, Rape, and Gaslighting
kitsunasaur's review against another edition
- 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? No
4.5
Moderate: Hate crime, Misogyny, Torture, Death, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, War, Gaslighting, Child abuse, Genocide, Grief, and Physical abuse
Minor: Child death
_alyssar_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
4.25
Graphic: Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Gore, Murder, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Torture, Violence, Child abuse, Death, Child death, Death of parent, Grief, and Sexism
beegster16's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Violence and Death
Moderate: Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, and War
Minor: Genocide, Rape, and Panic attacks/disorders
spill_the_tea's review
4.5
Graphic: Gaslighting, Grief, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Violence, War, and Sexual content
Minor: Cursing
bookishchef's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I still dislike the romance(s) in this series.
The last few chapters were amazing though.
I did not see any of the plottwists coming. It felt like I could have never known the Keenan plottwist anyway, which is a bit of a shame.
The plot twist with the Keris coup, was more of a puzzle that you could figure out if you were paying attention. So, I enjoyed that one more.
HATED how Harper suddenly turns out to be Elias's half brother though. Helene can't have Elias so we'll stick her with the closest thing she can genetically get? Nah. Not a fan.
Unfortunately, the romances that are more than just set-up aren't much better. The Keenan vs. Elias thing doesn't work at all when you know there is no chance in hell Laia would ever pick Keenan in the end. Sure, she might bang him in a shed, but they're not going to end up happily ever after. Everyone can tell that Elias x Laia is set up to be endgame.
The love triangle added no tension. Which made the parts with Keenan and Laia feel tedious because I was just there like 'omg Laia, when are you going to stop being distracted by this redhead and get back to the plot already?' And then the non existent tension is shattered even more by the Keenan plottwist... It makes Laia and Keenan's entire flirtationship redundant.
I don't get the point of it. Their flirtationship adds so little too the book. Just slows down the plot by a lot.
I thought Livia responded a bit too okay to her family being brutally murdered in front of her. She doesn't blame Helene for anything? At all? Seems improbable but okay.
What's up with Marcus btw? Book 1 and the beginning of this book do everything in their power to make him seem hella incapable, but then suddenly at the end of this book, he turns out to be balancing a coup, an army, dozens of Gens and their families, Helene and her gang, and the ghost of his dead brother? Is he smart or dumb? Clarity pls. (Also we love demonizing mental health issues 😩).
Also doesn't Elias's plot directly go against what the fortune tellers (whose names I have already forgotten) predicted in book 1? They predicted he would be truly free? But now he's bound to this literal Limbo. That doesn't sound like freedom to me.
Also the "desire is what makes us human", makes me, an asexual, want to strangle something.
Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Violence, War, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Torture, Terminal illness, and Slavery
angstifies's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
i honestly slightly liked Laia in book 1, but this book made her almost unbearable for me. she turned into this aspirant saint who always needs to save everyone and leave no one behind and i just hated it. it is such a dumb concept especially in a brutal fantasy world like this, it irritated me so much and i wish she could shut up about how “attractive and manly” both Elias and Keenan are and just… stop…
two complains i have about both this book and the previous one was the writing and the setting/descriptions.
the writing is once again too childish, focuses on the wrong things at the wrong times, and the way the characters narrate the story is just tiresome. the author has this way of shoving explanations down my throat of things EVERYONE CAN GUESS in a way that something happens and then Laia/Elias/Helene have to specifically explain it when it’s TOTALLY NOT NEEDED. you already guessed what happened but the narration HAS to point it it out for you so it felt repetitive without actually being repetitive.
and i’m sure the setting is amazing, if we only ever got descriptions of it. Elias and Laia are both traveling for most part of the book but the places they are in are never described, and i really wish they were. i cannot imagine how Serra is, how the houses in Serra are, how the market, the place where they go meet the tribes, the prison look like BECAUSE THERE ARE NO DESCRIPTIONS. we only get vague descriptions of characters, mostly repeating descriptions of characters that have already been described too many times. like yes, i did remember that Helene had blonde hair and Laia had golden eyes, thank you for pointing it out for the 10th time in this chapter.
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Torture
Moderate: Genocide, Misogyny, Child abuse, Murder, Slavery, Death of parent, Grief, Confinement, Kidnapping, and Sexism
Minor: Sexual content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Adult/minor relationship
calilaha's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Death, Child death, Genocide, War, Violence, Toxic relationship, Torture, Slavery, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Gaslighting, Fire/Fire injury, and Blood