Scan barcode
tina123's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
4.0
- spend so long shipping Daimon and Sanna and though it wouldn't happen but it did
- Am excited for their journey and how it continues
Moderate: Sexism and Homophobia
mazzeroo's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Cursing and Homophobia
Minor: Sexual content
booksthatburn's review against another edition
Graphic: Classism
Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Homophobia, and Transphobia
Minor: Alcoholism and Sexual content
gay's review against another edition
- 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
4.25
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Sexism
chalkletters's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
If you wanted to boil The Black Coast down to a ten-second elevator pitch, you could start with 'fantasy but with dinosaurs’, though it wouldn’t do the writing justice. Mike Brooks provides something for almost any kind of fantasy fan: there’s castles and honour for Robin Hobb fans, a criminal underworld for lovers of Locke Lamora and perspective-hopping plus a willingness to kill off important characters if you haven’t had enough of that in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Despite keeping a lot of different balls in the air, Mike Brooks manages to bring almost all the subplots to a satisfying place, while still leaving tantalising glimpses of what’s to come. The world and characters feel alive and the reader gets the sense that Mike Brooks knows what he’s building up to. The handling of perspective characters working against the heroes was particularly effective, with a special shoutout to Rikkut Fireheart for being extremely unpleasant, misguided but somehow still compelling.
I’d thoroughly recommend The Black Coast to fantasy fans, and will definitely be following up on the rest of the series.
Moderate: Death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Animal death, Suicide, Death of parent, and Violence
Minor: Alcohol, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, and Homophobia
oliverlang's review against another edition
- 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
"It was a murky morning. The sun had probably just about hauled itself over the horizon behind the clouds that rolled in overnight, but at the moment was doing about as much work as the rest of Black Keep "
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Homophobia, Suicide, Violence, War, Grief, Sexual content, Confinement, Death, Biphobia, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, and Self harm
jupiter2932's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Violence, Death, and Homophobia
Moderate: Sexism
linguisticali's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Homophobia and Violence
Moderate: Sexual content
sarah984's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
I thought the different cultures were well written and felt realistic even though they were also clearly designed to have rough edges that would catch on one another. The homophobia from one of the POV characters was a little much for me personally though. It's challenged in the text but it's really violent and the narrative kind of excuses it which annoyed me.
I can see a few obvious plot setups for the sequel that made me groan (there is one subplot in particular that requires a major character to be really careless about something extremely important in a way that seems contrived and uncharacteristic that will really bug me if it's a major feature in the sequel) but overall it left me feeling glad I read it.
Graphic: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, War, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual content, and Suicide
Minor: Dysphoria, Kidnapping, Outing, Pregnancy, and Transphobia
annailles's review
- 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
4.75
Graphic: Blood and Violence
Minor: Homophobia and Sexism