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christinereads1823's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
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
Stellar ending to the trilogy. The major plot twist/reveal was so well done, I read it and suddenly EVERYTHING from the previous books made sense. Novik's characters leap off the page and into your heart. El, as someone who is told by the universe that they're destined to be evil and bring destruction to the world and they say no, I will do right and keep saying it over and over again, and her steadfast friends will stay with me for a long, long time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Grief, Blood, Death, Violence, and Gore
louise_outthere's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
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
What a series ! One of my favorite for sure, I really enjoyed every single book.
This book is full of plot twists we weren't prepared for. The end is quite unexpected, I had lots of fun reading it.
I like the characters development and the relationships are well developed. I still don't get why there's this lgbtqia + passage, it is unnecessary and adds nothing to the series, it feels like it's there to say we checked the box "Reaching the lgbtqia+ community". Apart from that, I would have liked a more developed relationship with Orion, it feels like he's there but not really there, which we can understand at the beginning but in the last chapters is confusing.
Overall, it is well written, you don't get bored while reading it, there's always a storyline making you want to turn the next page.
Congrats for this amazing series !
This book is full of plot twists we weren't prepared for. The end is quite unexpected, I had lots of fun reading it.
I like the characters development and the relationships are well developed. I still don't get why there's this lgbtqia + passage, it is unnecessary and adds nothing to the series, it feels like it's there to say we checked the box "Reaching the lgbtqia+ community". Apart from that, I would have liked a more developed relationship with Orion, it feels like he's there but not really there, which we can understand at the beginning but in the last chapters is confusing.
Overall, it is well written, you don't get bored while reading it, there's always a storyline making you want to turn the next page.
Congrats for this amazing series !
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Child death, and Murder
Moderate: Body horror, Sexual content, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Deadnaming and Cursing
pj99's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
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? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Classism and Violence
Minor: Grief, Death of parent, and Sexual content
For those of whom grief is a very touchy triggerbeatriks's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- 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? No
3.5
What can I say?
I’ll have to wrap most of my review in spoilers. Without spoiling anything, this book comes with some surprises that I liked, the world building is still amazing. El’s narration can be really funny:
I’ll have to wrap most of my review in spoilers. Without spoiling anything, this book comes with some surprises that I liked, the world building is still amazing. El’s narration can be really funny:
So I followed her back to the yurt and let Mum give me a bowl of vegetable soup that tasted like it had been made with real vegetables, which might not sound very exciting to you, but what do you know.
Overall, I had a 2 year break in between book 2 and 3, that probably didn’t help.
Good points:
The whole enclave-building principle is genius
I like the “you’re already dead” principle
Less satisfying points
The way things end in the well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Death, and Grief
Moderate: War
nerdy_reader_9571's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
While I was glad that this third installment took place in locations other than the one that the previous two took place in, the story felt rushed and almost like two books compressed into one. There were a lot of events jam-packed into this one book with roughly the same amount of constant exposition and world-building as the first two installments in the series.
Overall, though, I enjoyed reading it, and I thought that everything within the story fit the lore of the first two books well and provided a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.
Overall, though, I enjoyed reading it, and I thought that everything within the story fit the lore of the first two books well and provided a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Murder, Torture, and Violence
kelisabeth's review against another edition
adventurous
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? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Gaslighting, Blood, Classism, Death, Drug use, Colonisation, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Homophobia, War, Alcohol, Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Murder, Violence, Gore, and Panic attacks/disorders
katy_bee's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
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
3.75
I've raced through this series, rather like a mawmouth. I've seen in other reviews that there are issues with the writing style- lots of telling rather than showing- and I agreed. The chosen one trope is very much present so if that's not your thing, beware. But I just really enjoyed them. I got swept up in the world and El's journey. The first half was definitely more page turning. Things slowed a little in the middle but I wanted to see what happened to the characters and have the mystery of the enclave attacks solved and it all came together very satisfyingly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and War
firefenix14's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- 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? It's complicated
4.5
LOVE this trilogy!!! This is the second time I've read through this series, first time was early 2023. I blew through these because I love the world and the story. El has so much going on, and the number of shifts and turns in this is amazing and captivating. There are definitely some slower moments within her internal dialogue incorporating more world building/history that I felt were unnecessary, but overall I really loved this series. Something is great about a bitter main character that begrudgingly does the right thing even though it is insanely hard. She never takes the easy way out, that's for sure. Everything about Orion and what he is, the way her mum tried to heal him, and the resolution between El and Deepthi Sharma was really well written. The emotional conclusion of that felt really satisfying, and her granddad threatening to leave the house/estate was a great show of his real love for Arjun, El, and her mom.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Torture
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, and War
Minor: Sexual content
blacksphinx's review against another edition
dark
emotional
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
What the hell, Novik did it again.
I was getting really frustrated with the first half of the book. At least three times, a character would say a couple of sentences and then El would explain a ton of inferred details to us for several pages. We had some important plot threads established, and pages were ticking by with no progress being made on them. El spent a lot of time not doing a damn thing, thinking for pages about how she didn't know what to do. There was a decent chunk spent on her wanting to accomplish something I thought was extremely stupid and didn't understand her motives - and then, at almost the 50% mark, the chess pieces were finally all on the board and the game began.
I kept saying to myself "there's no way she can solve [plot thread] in [pages left]" and then she DID over and over again until I had every answer I wanted. I actually want to go back and reread the prior two books knowing what I know now, because the reveals in this book were set up long before she started drafting it, there's just no way. It is a little bit of a spoiler to say this, so just skip over it, but watching El walk away from Omelas made me cry. In this present moment of multiple genocides and an ongoing, stubbornly-ignored pandemic, it hit me just right. "You got us all out for good, and they're trying to start a war over the bones. There's a better way. We know there's a better way. And you're trying to find it."
I was getting really frustrated with the first half of the book. At least three times, a character would say a couple of sentences and then El would explain a ton of inferred details to us for several pages. We had some important plot threads established, and pages were ticking by with no progress being made on them. El spent a lot of time not doing a damn thing, thinking for pages about how she didn't know what to do. There was a decent chunk spent on her wanting to accomplish something I thought was extremely stupid and didn't understand her motives - and then, at almost the 50% mark, the chess pieces were finally all on the board and the game began.
I kept saying to myself "there's no way she can solve [plot thread] in [pages left]" and then she DID over and over again until I had every answer I wanted. I actually want to go back and reread the prior two books knowing what I know now, because the reveals in this book were set up long before she started drafting it, there's just no way. It is a little bit of a spoiler to say this, so just skip over it, but watching El walk away from Omelas made me cry. In this present moment of multiple genocides and an ongoing, stubbornly-ignored pandemic, it hit me just right. "You got us all out for good, and they're trying to start a war over the bones. There's a better way. We know there's a better way. And you're trying to find it."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Torture, Grief, Gore, Confinement, and Drug use
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Classism
Minor: Vomit, Child death, Pregnancy, and Homophobia
ivi_reads_books's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
A brilliant ending for this trilogy. Full of twists and turns that I did not see coming. We finally learn how the Scholomance came about.
The book explores themes such as balance, destiny, friendship and fairness
The book explores themes such as balance, destiny, friendship and fairness
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Death
Moderate: Classism, Murder, Grief, and Medical trauma