Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare

23 reviews

freshbatchofbooks's review

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• 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: Child death, Alcoholism, Blood, and Alcohol

calathean's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

This book made me realise how much I enjoy reading about characters who are deeply loyal to a person, even at their own expense. Both Kel and Lin are very loyal main characters - Lin in wanting to save her best friend's life and Kel in living to protect Conor at all cost even dying for him if necessary. Likeable characters, strong friendships, strong worldbuilding within Castellane. The toxicity of the friendship between Conor and Kel due to the power imbalance and Kel literally being Conor's shield despite the friendship itself being genuine and Conor not wanting Kel to die or treating him like a servant at all is delicious. The worldbuilidng was a bit difficult to follow when it comes to the world outside Castellane, I'm still not sure which country is which and what their deal is. And it was also difficult to remember all the nobles and not get Conor's friends mixed up.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child death, Medical content, and Violence

Moderate: Classism, Sexism, Blood, Murder, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death of parent, Physical abuse, Vomit, Sexual content, Drug use, and Rape

kymboh78's review

adventurous mysterious 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? No

5.0

Stars: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶️
World building: 🏰🏰🏰🏰🏰
Slow burn: 🐢🐢🐢🐢 
Violence: 🗡️🗡️🗡️

This is an interesting five star for me. 

I didn’t rate it five stars because it was the most amazing book I’ve ever read or because I just couldn’t put it down. I normally rate books based on vibes and just how they make me feel overall. 

And don’t get me wrong, this book was a good book. It made me feel good. I was happy with it. 

Overall, this was a great read. Honestly, it felt good that I didn’t rush through it and could read it at my own speed. It was nice to not read something that wasn’t “trending” and feeling like I had to finish it super fast so I didn’t see spoilers. The world building was great, the character development was fantastic, although I do wish we saw a little more about Connor and his character development, the story was interesting and although there weren’t crazy omg plot twists, it was still fun. 

The book is told from two different third person POV. One follows Lin and the other follows Kel. I enjoyed seeing both sides of the story and how they intertwined.  I felt like Lin added a lot of dynamic to the story. I will say there are some things I wish we got more details about but if she gave us everything, it wouldn’t be a series, so I understand. 

Some people might argue that it was too slow, I think it was just right. Because of the two intertwined stories (really three, but that third is so closely related to Kel that it’s not necessary for a third POV), the world had to be built up a little more. Clare had to build both sides of the world at once instead of doing one in one book and one in another. That adds a complexity to the writing that was really appreciated. 

While it is classified as an adult fantasy, it doesn’t deal with crazy crazy topics. There’s some violence toward the end but not a ton. There’s some suggestive scenes, but nothing descriptive. And I’m pretty sure there was only one swear word, again toward the end of the book. 

Have you read sword catcher? Let me know what you think! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol

Moderate: War, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Child death

jennipea382's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Death, Violence, Gore, Alcohol, Blood, Classism, and Child death

Moderate: Medical content, Torture, Sexism, Gore, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Drug use, and Physical abuse

Minor: Sexual content

celery's review

adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious sad tense slow-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Violence, Animal cruelty, Deportation, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Religious bigotry, Torture, Toxic friendship, Blood, Sexism, Alcohol, Antisemitism, Colonisation, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gore, Xenophobia, Animal death, Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug use, Murder, Sexual content, Abandonment, Bullying, Child death, Dementia, Genocide, Gaslighting, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Vomit, War, Chronic illness, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Addiction

natashalg's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Exciting read, and I'm looking forward to the next one to answer all my questions and devel deeper into the mysteries of the kingdom! It seems like the politics would be boring, but I actually found it enjoyable. The only downside is I do not think the characters' flaws are examined/explained well enough. It's hard to understand why they do what they do (mainly the Prince), but since this is the first book of a series, I think it just leaves the door open to explore the character development later on. Overall, a good start to a potential excellent series. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Classism, Blood, Alcohol, Chronic illness, and Medical content

Moderate: Drug use, Religious bigotry, Child death, and Mental illness

bethsreading's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Sword Catcher feels different to other high fantasy books I’ve read as its main focus is on the characters and the world’s precarious political situation. While it inevitably does have the shadow of a potential war lingering over the story - something I’m sure we will see more of in the coming books - I really enjoyed the less grandiose elements of the plot and I feel they make it stand apart from others in the genre. At many points, it felt like more of a mystery story than your typical fantasy, which for my tastes, worked really well. 

The main issue I had with this book is that sadly, the first half of it is far too bogged down by world building. I do love how Cassandra Clare can create such vivid and fantasy worlds, and it is really important in a politically focused story to have its history be fully fleshed out, but the level of detail felt unnecessary at times and too dense for the first half of the book. I personally think that the first half of the book needed to be edited down about 80 ish pages as it was quite slow going at first. However, once I hit the 300 page mark, the pace really picked up and I absolutely flew through the rest of book. 

While I did find Lin’s character annoying at times, overall the character’s were interesting, nuanced, and likeable. I really enjoyed my time reading it and I look forward to seeing how the story progresses in future books. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Racism, Alcohol, Murder, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Drug use, War, Animal death, and Vomit

arrr's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

It took me a few chapters to get into this book. A lot of initial setting up of characters and world building. But it's very worth it! Hope I get to read more about these characters. 

Physician confronts systemic inequity and bigotry inside and outside her own culture on order to learn what she needs to save as life. 

This struggle is cast against the wasteful leisurely wonderfully queer lives of the royals and the guards tasked with keeping them alive. 

The magic is powerful. I want to explore more of this huge world. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, Violence, Bullying, Child abuse, Genocide, War, Xenophobia, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Chronic illness, Racial slurs, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexism, Blood, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Classism, and Death

elizabeth_lepore's review

adventurous 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Misogyny, Blood, Alcohol, Rape, Medical content, and Sexual content

Minor: Drug use and Injury/Injury detail

maidmarianlib's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

Rich world, with interesting characters, more on the adult end with content

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual content, Alcoholism, Drug use, Alcohol, and Bullying