Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon

42 reviews

karcitis's review against another edition

adventurous 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Gore, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Domestic abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Murder, Death of parent, and Blood

Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Colonisation, Drug use, Child abuse, Sexual harassment, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Confinement, Deadnaming, Vomit, and Dysphoria

aexileigh's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Police brutality, Racism, Blood, Bullying, Classism, Colonisation, Deadnaming, and Death

Moderate: Drug use, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, and War

orion's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny tense fast-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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism

Moderate: Cursing and Drug use

Minor: War, Bullying, Deadnaming, Physical abuse, and Child abuse

the_vegan_bookworm's review

adventurous inspiring 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

What an incredible and beautiful story focusing on a complex and layered main character. I love the world building, the language and the characters 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Deadnaming, Violence, Child abuse, and Transphobia

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Drug use, and Sexual content

Minor: Police brutality, Infertility, and Genocide

onthesamepage's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.0

One of the things I really appreciated about this story is that the author went all out when it comes to diversity. There's a wide range of characters with different genders, sexualities, races, and there's even a (very minor) hijabi fae character. Definitely haven't seen that before, and even though she barely had any page time, I still appreciated that she was included.

I enjoyed Wyatt as a character overall, but he didn't always feel consistent. One moment, he'll profess not to care about something, and 50 pages later, it's suddenly a problem. He's angry at
Emyr one moment, and horny for him the next. Being in his head is a roller coaster, but I didn't mind it for the most part. I enjoyed his interactions with Emyr and his relationship with Briar, which was really sweet. I do think we're never really shown the depth of either relationship though, just told about it, which is unfortunate.

The two weakest parts of this book are the plot and the writing. The initial premise is already pretty shaky: Wyatt strikes a deal with Derek, Emyr's enemy/rival for the throne, to make such a mess of things that everybody will be against Emyr marrying him. And then he proceeds to supposedly cause chaos, but in a way that he's never caught at it, so nobody actually knows he's messing anything up. Wyatt definitely didn't understand the assignment.

There's also no sense of urgency; even big events get swept away under the rug in a very anticlimactic manner that makes one wonder why it was included at all.

The ending doesn't make any sense, even after it gets explained. I still don't understand what exactly happened, or how the explanation we're given matches with the actual events that occurred.

The writing doesn't really leave room for the reader to interpret anything by themselves. Everything is spelled out for you, from how Wyatt feels about what's happening now, to the parallels we're supposed to see between the human world and the faerie world.

There's also a lot of overexaggerating. For example:

It takes a minute for me to realize what he's talking about, and when I do, I desperately regret ever learning how to read.

The story is written in first person POV from Wyatt's perspective, which is common enough for YA. However, lines like:

But I'm not sure I should now. No, I probably shouldn't. Do I really want to--
Oh, it would appear I'm already pulling the deck out of my bag.

make it feel more stream of consciousness, which isn't really my preference when it comes to fantasy. I'm not interested in every single thought Wyatt ever has about everything, but that's kind of what I got. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault, Drug use, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Child abuse

mazomazli's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.0

Great ideas poorly done. There’s so much I wanted to love about this but I was so disappointed. I hate to say that I’m glad it’s over so I don’t have to read anything more about you tongues flicking over lips, wings shooting out, more mouth stuff constantly over and over again. I didn’t even mind the meme-y writing, I think that’s actually fun. I just cannot with these descriptions repeating what easily has to be at least 100 times. 

It also feels like the story needed some rearranging and adjustment of length of various scenes. There was so much potential :(

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Deadnaming, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, and Drug use

Minor: Genocide, Dysphoria, and Infertility

thewildmageslibrary's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny

5.0

This was such a fun book. Wyatt is so dramatic and probably needs a life coach to help with decision making, but I love him. Emyr was a great surprise and idk, he can be my king any day. I love how supportive the main group in this is. Also, the ending - RUDE. Off to buy the sequel. XD

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Deadnaming, Death, Death of parent, and Violence

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Colonisation, Racism, Grief, Blood, Dysphoria, Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Drug use, Sexual content, and Infertility

uranaishi's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Police brutality, and Bullying

Moderate: Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Colonisation, Deadnaming, Cursing, Drug use, Infertility, Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Child abuse, Xenophobia, Genocide, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Blood, Grief, Miscarriage, and War

bingo_banjo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny inspiring mysterious relaxing 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Body horror, Police brutality, Colonisation, Death, Drug use, Murder, Toxic relationship, Deadnaming, Vomit, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Alcohol, Drug use, Pregnancy, and Terminal illness

oliver_bug's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

3.0

The book is pretty average. It kept me hooked enough to finish the book, but not enough for me to want to read it again. I do want to read the second book just out of curiosity. Wyatt, the main character, is pretty bland. It feels like his only depth is being trans and being mean. I did however enjoy a lot of the side characters such as Emyr, briar, and jin. Emyr had a lot of depth to his character and was very interesting to read about. The world-building was okay at best, a lot of the lore was brought up a few times then almost never talked about again or explained. The plot point of fascism and racism was a little strange at times but I am definitely not the person to speak on that. The LGBTQ representation at some points seemed a little bit forced or over-explained, rather than something that's brought up once and flows naturally with the story, sometimes the story took a little too long explaining that these people are how they are. However, I did really enjoy the way that some of the relationships were written, like Solomons. Overall the book was okay and I would recommend reading it if you're looking for something like this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, and Deadnaming

Minor: Child abuse