Reviews tagging 'Death'

Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi

83 reviews

erins_bookrecs's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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

Moderate: Death, Violence, and War

brynalexa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Second time reading this, first time by audio format. I enjoyed the print version more. It’s fun to see the growth of the characters but, wow, do they make some awful decisions. The ending shocked me all over again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Misogyny, Racism, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

Minor: Animal death and Alcohol

bexs848's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Torture

bookishperseus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Torture and Fire/Fire injury

amschelly153's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.5

Well written, complicated and lovable characters. Beautiful and intriguing magic system! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

acielawhorn3's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I enjoyed this book quite a bit for some of it, a solid 4 stars. But after

so many plans failed and constantly hearing about how Amari needs to tale the throne and blah blah blah it just became so incredibly redundant at times.

. Just like in the last novel, Inan was still my favorite POV to read and see him come to his senses by the end of the novel. but

just like the last one his constant flip-flopping on whose side to take was just kind of annoying especially when most of the time theres no real reason for the changing decisions. He did the right thing by the end of the novel which is what matters but still it was a little annoying.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death and Death

lizzie24601's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

2.0

An interesting installment for the trilogy that deals with a lot of the same themes of the first book. This one frustrated me, tho, because of the lack of character growth. The main characters continue to make the same mistakes time and time again and grapple with the same flaws that it becomes boring.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and War

Moderate: Child death, Death, Violence, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Confinement

ethuiliel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and War

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

Minor: Sexual content

paintedpolarbear's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

3.0

am i the only one who was supremely confused by everyone's actions? why are we doing this

Overall a decent sequel to the previous, but I had many issues with pacing and characterization that can't be overlooked, as well as what I believe was a fatal deviation from the intended plot progression. Many themes and throughlines from the first book appear to have been dropped or outright reversed in this installment.

To start with, the introduction of Titans was, at the beginning, a logical progression from the ending of the previous book. "The Gods work in mysterious ways" indeed, and it appeared to be a natural consequence of magic returning to the world. How would maji, with their closed cultural practices revolving around magic, adapt to the sudden influx of non-religious magic users? How would the new Titans adapt to their unprecedented powers? The answer was badly, on both counts, with the arrival of Titans sowing immediate chaos and disunity among the nation. Nobody handled this well. My major gripe was how quickly the argument among the maji devolved from actual cultural concerns to "well we just have to account for them when drawing up plans on how to kill as many people as possible." The idea that this was the gods' plan all along just never came up, which is insane considering how many other discussions revolved around trying to puzzle out the gods' will. What should have been a metaphor for socio-religious conflict became "my enemy leveled up, so now I have to level up as well," ad infinitum. Nobody wins in an arms race, btw.

One constant bugbear throughout the entire book was Amari's choices and actions. She quickly went from a character I was rooting for to a character I was hoping would die in a rockslide or something. Like, I get it, what are you supposed to do when the person whose approval you need says to your face that the best thing you can do for your country is die, but...I think the right answer is NOT to turn around and immediately magically lobotomize that person, take up the role of tribal elder (it's giving settler colonialism 🥴), and proceed to develop your own special and unique take on magic that completely disregards the cultural history that you have only just now become even slightly curious about. I'm also side-eyeing Mama Agba for condoning and encouraging literally everything about this. 

Not to mention the LITERAL ACTUAL WAR CRIME of TARGETING CIVILIANS. Over which she has the AUDACITY to be shocked and dismayed that people are upset that she committed. Of which SHE is upset ONLY BECAUSE IT DIDN'T WORK. And expected everyone (including her boyfriend) to forgive her when OTHER PEOPLE have to resort to BLOOD SACRIFICE to invent NEW MAGIC just to UNDO WHAT SHE DID.

(This is not to say I am not side-eying Zelie/the Iyika literally using the exact same superweapon in their attack against the monarchy in the next scene, but it's fine because they're targeting soldiers? Can we be serious.)

Oh and the epilogue. Why was the trans-Atlantic slave trade overture necessary at all?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Torture, Violence, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

sweetchocolatez's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Grief, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Genocide, Slavery, Torture, Blood, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Sexual content, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol