Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Celestial Monsters by Aiden Thomas

17 reviews

crafts_and_coccinellids's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious 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

4.5

I really liked this book! The characters and their dynamics were fantastic and the plot was engaging. I thought it was a good follow up to the first book, though I liked that one slightly better. The ending was very emotionally effective,

though I do wish that the dioses had actually worked to make the world better instead of leaving everyone else to deal with the consequences of their mistakes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Blood, War, and Classism

Minor: Deadnaming

bookcaptivated's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Torture, and Kidnapping

Minor: Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, and War

cj13's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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: Death, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, and Grief

Minor: Child death and Excrement

bookishmillennial's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective 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

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

I love the continuation of following our goofy, thoughtful, precious babies who visit different cities (fun, more incredible world-building based on indigenous cultures) and finally get to be part of rebuilding a society that they are proud of. 

Their dialogues about what it means to be Jade, Gold, Obsidian, and how they had treated Xio were so tender, honest, and lovely. Yes, they were a bit sanitized, but this is a YA fantasy. Cry about it!!! I loved the approach Aiden Thomas took in crafting these tough conversations between kids. I hope it models a healthy way to communicate about questioning society and systems as a whole. 

Overall, I was glad to see the happy ending, and obviously it's sad to say goodbye to characters I've come to love, but I'd love to see this optioned and adapted for a tv series or a film duology/trilogy! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture

zombiezami's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful

4.5

A fun time. I didn’t really get why

the gods had to up and leave completely to make amends for ignoring humans’ needs

at the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Cursing, and Torture

Minor: Child death, Death, Genocide, Suicidal thoughts, and Dysphoria

theirgracegrace's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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

Celestial Monsters takes the powerful foundation of the Sunbearer Trials and goes even further in daring to imagine a more equitable world. With the Obsidian dioses freed from their prisons, they are going to take their revenge and plunge the world into eternal darkness unless Teo, Niya and Aurelio can free their captured fellow semidioses and reclaim the Sol Stone. What struck me the most was how the Obsidian people are described in this book; we're introduced to them in the context of the history given in the Sunbearer Trials being a history written by the victors who committed genocide against them. The story of

Suerte and how Xio redeems themself through returning to being his child

is also an incredibly powerful subplot that reaches its culmination at the climax of the action. The characters remain loveable, flawed and often ridiculously silly. I can easily see myself reading and re-reading this duology in the years to come. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism

Minor: Sexual content, Medical content, and Dysphoria

kays_reading_journal's review against another edition

4.5

Content Warnings: There’s a full list at the bottom but I wanted to elaborate on something: there is a deaf character whose hands are restrained therefore he looses the ability to communicate.

Aiden Thomas is the author that got me back into reading after college and is the author that just got me out of a slump. 

He pulls the perfect amount of emotion out of a reader while balancing it with humor. 

I won’t lie tho I don’t love all the characters. I adore Teo and Aurelio so much, but Niya just gets on my nerves. 

I’m all for redemption, but I wasn’t a fan of how it ended up being handled here. Kind of tied into this, I feel like the horridness of how the characters were treated was glazed over.

I mostly mean I cannot believe that the semidioses forgave Xio so quickly, when they barely apologized (if it happened, I don’t remember it). More specifically, Dezi is treated absolutely horrendous. Taking away his ability to communicate for himself and with others. Especially when his power revolves around touch, it was unnecessarily cruel.

I watched a three hour recap of the first book on YouTube before picking up the sequal, and I think if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have enjoyed this so much.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Torture, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Bullying, and Blood

booknerdery's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective tense medium-paced

• 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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Torture, Violence, and Blood

robinks's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.75

Ahhhh I was so excited to finish this duology, and Thomas did not disappoint! I loved spending more time with such a colorful cast of characters, and the semidioses grappled with some really tough issues. I want to see a movie of this series!!

The ending was sad but satisfying, and the epilogue warmed my heart. I love Teo and Aurelio! My only critique is that I wish we got to see a bit more of what the new world is like for everyone.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Violence, and Death of parent

Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Genocide, Suicide, Torture, Xenophobia, Blood, Stalking, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Child death, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts

nikki_flowers's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Look, I’m a simple lad, give me childhood friends to enemies to lovers (and a queer/trans normative world!!!!!!) and I’ll eat it up EVERY time

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child death, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Gaslighting