Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Vespertine

Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson

69 reviews

vagorsol's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional medium-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

5.0

Content Warnings

bree_h_reads's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.25

I was really excited to read Vespertine after reading an Enchantment of Ravens and seeing the higher overall rating for this. While I still enjoyed it and will definitely be continuing the series, there were some areas I found a bit lacking.

To start, I really enjoyed the characters. I think every one of them felt fairly well rounded and I enjoyed the scenes they were in. I quickly got attached with the limited page time provided to the secondary characters. Seeing how they interacted with each other and the implied off page interactions made them feel alive. The big three being Artemisia, the Reverent, and Leander (at least for me). I loved the dynamic between Artemisia and the Revenant, watching it grow from begrudging ally-ship to genuine care and concern. Leander and Artemisia’s dynamic too was extremely interesting, reading how they played off of and reas each other. I hope to see more of their dynamic in the future!

In contrast to the interesting characters, I found the flow of the story and the reveal of plot twist to be a bit lacking, though not by much. While overall I think the story flowed fairly well, the foreshadowing and build to the plot twist is where it fell short. I figured it out maybe part way through the book, not because of any hints dropped by the text itself, but because that’s just how these books go. If the book had built up to the reveal and better left the hints, then it would have been up a star rating. Unfortunately, the twist is fairly easy to figure out if you’re at all familiar with popular trends in fantasy right now.

The world building was something else I largely enjoyed. While it could be a bit info dump-y at times, overall I found the delivery to be concise and within what the reader needed to know without bogging things down. There were only a couple details I thought were a bit strange given the overall world and religion. There’s a comment made in the book about the world only viewing women as something that can either become a nun or pop out babies. However, this seems somewhat out of sync with the rest of the world. They worship a goddess, women are the major players in their church, they have a young woman as they head of the church, the major (if not all) saints are women, and the devil figure is a man. It seems strange to me that the oppression of women it called out when the world seems to be dominated by them. I do understand that this is inspired by Joan of Arc and wanting to make a commentary on the treatment of women. It also feels asynchronies with the rest of the work where it never seems like women are viewed in this way. It took me out of it, and while (again) I understand wanting to make a point on how our society viewed/views and treats women the line took me out of the story for a bit.

I also think some of the themes could have been better explored. Artemisia is a nun, raised in a fairly sequestered convent who is quickly persecuted by the higher ups in her religion once she takes control of a powerful relic and saves several people. Throughout the book it feels like things are being setup for Artemisia and other characters to explore their feelings on the religion, what they’re taught, religious trauma, and corruption within the hierarchy. Yet it never really pulls at those strings and dives into them. Considering how the book is setup and what seems to be implied throughout the text, I wish it were a larger focus. While I don’t expect Artemisia to abandon her religion, I wish more time had been given to explore the issues within it. Hopefully it’s something we’ll get more of in later books, assuming the talk of a series is true.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and will happily read the others if/once they come out. I do, however, think this book could have benefited from a few more revisions and being a little bit longer to better build up to twist and explore themes.

Content Warnings

eviethebookworm's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional 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? N/A

4.25

Margaret Rogerson has created a dark and gritty world that reminds me of The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owens.

Artemisia, who I have nicknamed Artie in my head, is fantastically introverted and intelligent. Her relationship with the revenant is reminiscent of a begrudging elder taking on an apprentice against their better judgment.

If you’re looking for a fantasy novel that addresses religious themes, this book is the answer to your prayers. It’s not dismissive of those with faith. However, Rogerson hasn’t shied away from issues that come up when dealing with belief systems and the people who follow them.

I can’t wait to see if there’s more to Artie’s story. Fingers crossed Rogerson writes another Vespertine novel sometime soon.

Content Warnings

sonygaystation's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny 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? Yes

4.5

The character growth in this book was so *chef’s kiss*!!! Also the revenant has my whole heart

Content Warnings

pointeshoebookworm's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

charloforce's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

Content Warnings

rosemary_for_remembrance's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

asiamd's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

5.0

This book was sooooo good. I loved the main character and her revenant!! The way the author added depth and feelings to every character that came on the page was amazing. I really adore books that allow for villians to also be victims of pain and fear and I felt like this book did a great job of incorporating that wit a kind of anti-hero in the revenant as well as all the other spirits throughout the book. I really liked the different take on religion as well, while it was really similar to Christianity(?) with the blind belief of the people, the praying, and the saints, Rogerson also made it unique in the book by adding a more ghostlike twists that in my opinion added way more humanity to what the spirits were. Overall I really enjoyed this book and read it in one day 🤭 so 10/10

Content Warnings

aas's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous 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

4.25

Content Warnings

rachelgreenreads's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This was such a great story. The MC is a badass, neurodivergent and disabled nun, who allies with powerful spirit to uncover a vast magical plot, as well as the obscured history of the powers that be in her world. Rogerson writes power and humanity really well, while also making you love her complex and imperfect characters. Similarly to Sorcery of Thorns, she has her characters question what has been deemed wholly evil in her characters’ worlds, and if such a thing even exists. She artfully complicates concepts of good and evil, through characters and archetypes which are both fantastical and easy to relate to.

Content Warnings

More...