Reviews tagging 'War'

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

54 reviews

aino_maria23's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Torture, Death, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic, Drug use, Grief, War, Addiction, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Sexual violence, and Trafficking

Minor: Sexual violence, Alcohol, Sexual content, War, Cursing, Pregnancy, and Panic attacks/disorders

david_slack110507's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective 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

4.5

I had an awful reading slump whilst reading this book and I feel like that may have affected my rating for this book (Even though I am giving it 5 stars, it is more of a just about 4.5 stars because of the reading slump and the reading slump only type of situation) but even with that I still majorly enjoyed this and my reading experience cemented the Grishaverse series and particularly the Six of Crows duology as some of my favourite series of books. If I had been more consistent with reading I would have liked Crooked Kingdom even more than I already do. 

I absolutely love the Crows and their dynamics with one another. It expanded on them even more from Six of Crows, particularly with the relationships of Kaz and Inej, Jesper and Wylan, Jesper and Kaz, Nina and Inej etc. It was so fun seeing all of the characters continue to flourish and to expand upon their already established relationships as well as build new ones and it was one of the main things that kept me coming back even with my reading slump in full force. I liked the endings we got for our Crows as they felt both satisfying and open-ended enough to allow for a sequel or for them to show up in other stories like Nina in the King of Scars duology. 

The plot, while I don't think I loved it as much as the Ice Court heist, was still very interesting and was not what I expected going off of the ending of Six of Crows and where this book started off as the plot twists felt cleverly planned out and implemented without feeling like they were done to simply progress the story lazily. The last part of the book - Part 6: Action & Echo - was extremely interesting and one of my favourite parts of the boom because the chaos flowed very nicely to make it an unpredictable, fun, and memorable reading experience. Matthias' death was unexpected and while it wasn't extremely emotional for me as Matthias is one of my lesser favourite Crows (though I do still really like him as a character), it was still effectively done and I'm interested in seeing how this will affect Nina's story going into King of Scars. 

Overall, I really liked this book and while I do feel like reading this through a reading slump affected my opinion on the book, though to no fault of the book, I think it was very successful and met my expectations on how to end this duology yet left it in an interesting place to open up into another book to make it a trilogy, which I would not be totally against. I'm most likely going to continue on with my Grishaverse binge and read Nikolai's duology with Zoya and Nina, King of Scars, next as well as hopefully soon rewatch season 1 of Shadow and Bone as well as finally watch season 2 for the first time as I've been waiting until I finished this book as I have been unsure whether or not they included elements of this and Six of Crows into season 2 or not.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Blood, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Kidnapping, Murder, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Violence, and Torture

Moderate: Misogyny, Terminal illness, War, Sexual violence, Child death, Addiction, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexism, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Pandemic/Epidemic, Confinement, Mental illness, Racism, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Abandonment, and Gun violence

Minor: Vomit, Ableism, Pregnancy, Cursing, Eating disorder, Police brutality, Sexual content, Alcohol, Bullying, Classism, Drug use, and Drug abuse

_ami_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Gore, Murder, Violence, War, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Death, Slavery, Torture, and Trafficking

Minor: Vomit, Ableism, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Child death, Domestic abuse, and Pandemic/Epidemic

jackacj's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-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

A great continuation of Six of Crows. The characters were still amazing, I enjoyed the prose - this time, the plot also had a bigger focus. I loved the book - but I have two and a half problems with it that prevent me from 5/5. Major spoilers ahead. 

The final part of the book, "Action and Echo", felt very rushed to me. I knew Matthias was going to die and it still felt sudden, and not in a good way, but in an extremely abrupt way. We were shown the emotional consequences of this on the crows, but I still felt the book moved on too quickly, and set the death up even quicker. Ninna completely disappears a bit after Matthias's. 
The second problem is the resolution to Wylan's plotline - I actually loved how it ended up, but I hate we were only told he got back his mother and she is starting to become herself again but it's going to be a long process. Why couldn't we have had another POV chapter of Wlan's? Can you imagine how powerful that would be? Marya Henriks overall feels like a plot device, not a character, which is a pity - alas, instead of expanding on her character and writing a beautiful emotional reunion we had a chapter of Wylan taking the Van Eck mansion. The last problem is much smaller - Inej. While I love Kanej was resolved and wouldn't have it any other way, we should have seen Inej talk to her parents. The whole book builds up to I nej telling her parents what she's done - if she could justify it somehow, if what she did right. The second conflict was resolved in her fight with Dunyasha, the second? Never, apparently.

Even so, I love the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Death

Moderate: Slavery

Minor: Ableism, Rape, War, and Sexual assault

maihja's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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

5.0

Such a fun, amazing and gripping story!! Hard to put the book down, wellll except for.....

CHAPTER 39, NOOOOOO!!!!!! OW!! Wth, Leigh bardugo!!! Matthias, my not-scandinavian-scandinavian :( crying hard in the club rn

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, Addiction, and Violence

Moderate: Gun violence and Death of parent

little_white's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness and Addiction

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Trafficking, Slavery, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Drug abuse, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, Torture, and Genocide

Minor: Death of parent, Child death, Vomit, Pregnancy, Forced institutionalization, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, War, Rape, and Pandemic/Epidemic

booksanna's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious 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

Magnificent. Brilliant. Exhilarating. Breath-taking. Heart-pumping. Earth-shattering. These are only a few of the words that could even attempt to describe the intricate journey of reading Crooked Kingdom. Although, the world building has received its fare share of appraise, it deserves all the more compliments nonetheless. Bardugo’s masterful writing created a new universe of characters and works that are not only incredibly believable and complex, but also enjoyable. Through this wonderful reading journey, I as a reader have become part of the Six of Crows’ crew. I have experienced the shame, the anguish that came with hardships, the comfort and relief that followed  the wins, the pure terror and fear with unsuspected plot twists, but through it all I have felt the characters hearts.  I felt

Nina’s love for the world(and food). I have held my breath with Inej on that rope. I have paced the room with Jesper. I have looked Jan Van Eck in the eyes with Wylan and read. I have seen the hope in young Fjerda soldiers eyes with Matthias. And I have felt Kaz Brekker’s sizzling revenge as he saw Pekka Rollins beg for his songs life. I was there on that boat saying Farewell to Matthias on that boat

. The pure raw emotion I felt from this book was overwhelmingly realistic. From characters thoughts to their human mistakes, the story could not be crafted better. This story truly deserves all the hype it receives online and in person. I have nothing more to say than “If you want to truly know the magnificence of this book. Do not look for it in this review. You will only find it in the starting pages of this book. Now go and read it. ”

P.S- the world building is incredibly complex and it took me months to finish this book. It was all worth it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Trafficking and Death

Moderate: Torture, Kidnapping, Child death, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: War

axel_p's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense slow-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

4.0

I have no idea why it took me so long to read this book.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Classism, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Grief, Pregnancy, Ableism, Blood, Gun violence, Mental illness, Murder, Racism, Sexual violence, Stalking, Trafficking, Violence, Addiction, Body horror, Slavery, Xenophobia, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Kidnapping, Medical content, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Gaslighting, Religious bigotry, War, and Torture

sginnaw's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Violence, Vomit, and War

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Pandemic/Epidemic, Slavery, Torture, and Trafficking

Minor: Child death, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, and Rape

laurenkgrace's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Trafficking, Slavery, War, Panic attacks/disorders, Kidnapping, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Murder, and Death