Reviews with content warning for Rape - A Clash of Kings

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

78 reviews

suneaters's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Get shadow babied. A very entertaining, well-paced book that had me interested in each POV and not dreading or disinterested in any of them. I liked the new POVs, though you spend a lot of time feeling bad for them both honestly. Theon definitely gets more insufferable as the book goes on and whenever there's a woman involved. Very funny of Asha to do that to him, but she should have honestly made him leave with her.
Tyrion's chapters are kind of like watching a train crash. He reminds me of Stannis in the opposite. Neither can be courteous even though it would help them a lot, earn them less enemies, and probably save lives. Where is female socialization when you need it, I tell you! But wow, that shadow baby thing was so horrific and disgusting from the Davos POV, even though it's so brief. It was really disturbing.
Littlefinger must have been doing some wizardry to get that Tyrell marriage pact, but I suppose they probably felt like this was the winning side. Somehow I feel like they're doomed. Any side you think is winning is probably doomed. I expect that Stannis is the safest because he seems doomed anyhow. And he's got them shadow babies.
The Stark kid chapters are alright too. They're a relief because you know this kid hasn't committed any human rights violations yet. Bran's were probably the most interesting, but I liked hearing from Arya and Sansa as well. And it was funny watching Dany try her hardest to get that ship! And then Barristan with the funniest fake name ever shows. Arstan Whitebeard, that's good. She got robbed at the House of the Undying, where was all this about the secret dragon language? Also, I wonder if she went the right way because Pyat says the first door to your right, and in one she takes the rightmost door, which sounds like the farther right. Who knows, maybe the prophecy is all a crock anyhow.

Content Warnings

crystalstarrlight's review

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4.0

Bullet Review:

Was that really 30 discs worth of a book?! I've gone through 9 disc books in more time!

Really enjoyed this, maybe more than the first one. Some really big plot twists in this one - more than one made me gasp and run for confirmation to Wiki.

Full review:

You know, there are three kinds of reviews I really hate to write:

1) I wanted to love the book SO MUCH (maybe because so many of my friends loved it), and I hated it.

2) I felt meh about the book. There wasn't really anything WRONG with the book, but there was also nothing really extraordinary to talk about.

3) I loved the book, but really, a review saying, "I love this and this and this and oh yeah, this was awesome too!" is exceptionally boring.

This review is Option 3.

A Game of Thrones was a great start to the series, but I'll admit, as I listened, I got lost a couple of times and wasn't 100% sold on its awesomeness. I held back that fifth star so that the series would have some room to sell me.

Which is exactly what "A Clash of Kings" did.

ACoK is exactly what every moviemaker attempts to do when creating a sequel - bigger, better, louder, faster, more awesome, scarier, whatever. ACoK takes new chance, goes to new places, pushes characters in new directions and throws the most INCREDIBLE plot twists and character changes at you.

I'd go into more detail about what I liked and why, but...spoilers. Seriously, people, this is good enough you shouldn't let yourself be spoiled and actually experience it by reading or listening.

I was going to end by talking about my favorite characters, but I realize that may have some spoilers too. So instead, here's a list of my favorite characters, and if you wanna talk about why they are my favorites, let's move it to the comments:

Favorite Characters

Daenerys Targaryen
Catelyn Stark
Tyrion Lannister (DUH!!!)
Sansa Stark
Cersei Lannister
Ned Stark
Asha Greyjoy
Khaal Drogo

Least Favorite Characters

Viserys Targaryen
Theon Greyjoy
Bran

The Song of Ice and Fire series is really endearing itself to me. I love its balance of fantasy and realism; I love how the characters are flawed, how so many women play such diverse and important roles, how you can never quite predict what will happen. I can't wait to start up on the HBO Season 2 and then proceed to book 3!

CONTENT NOTE: I get that some people may not like to read books with incest, rape, and graphic violence (along with CHARACTERS being sexist, racist, etc.). This book has all of these items and a bit more. So while I do heartily recommend, I also want to warn people that these items are present.

Content Warnings

onyxisalive's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional slow-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

I really enjoyed reading this.
This book has changing POV's, but, surprisingly, they are all super engaging and fun to read - I love how much character progression we got to see with this one (especially the female characters), it is really awesome to see them starting to become more independent and mature.
I really like the characters they picked to be the POV characters. By doing it the way they did it really shows how big the world is - however, there are a few events in the books that I would have liked to see happen, but it makes sense why we did not.
At certain points the descriptions felt a little long, but it never got so bad that I stopped enjoying reading the book.

The sack of kings landing felt a lot more weighty in here compared to show which I really liked. The battle of the blackwater was really good, but there were points, in my opinion, that it dragged a little, but was overall very awesome to read.

The characters actions felt very consistent with everything we had seen of them in the book.

This book, despite all the action felt very character focused, much of the combat happens off screen despite being called a clash of kings. However, as a very character driven person I did not mind this, and as I was already attached to all the characters because of the show I really enjoyed this one. On the other hand, it would have been nice to see some more of the events happen on screen, but I did like that it focused more of the impact of the events on the characters rather than the events themselves, for me, it made it a much more engaging read.

All in all, I really enjoyed this. Never at any point did this book feel really boring, I was engaged the whole way through. I could see some people struggling with this due to how character focused it is, especially in the middle.

Content Warnings