Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Godslayers by Zoe Hana Mikuta

14 reviews

spaghettii's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-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

4.5

I loved the depth added to the characters that were on an opposing side to the main characters. I never thought I would sympathize with the guy that was supposed to be the genocidal villain in book one. The main reason I didn't give fiv  stars was the skipping ahead in the plot. I understand the practicality of it, but I hated going to the next chapter and seeing that it's set several months into the future. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Suicide, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Genocide, Kidnapping, Mental illness, War, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Torture

victoriousbookworm's review against another edition

adventurous emotional

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Murder, Suicide, Vomit, Torture, and Kidnapping

grandiose_r's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful 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: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Gun violence, Gore, Child death, War, Violence, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Suicide, Torture, and Suicidal thoughts

drtx_bwt's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Death

Moderate: Violence, Body horror, War, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide

emily_mh's review against another edition

adventurous 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

2.75

Oof, this sequel did not live up to expectations. Behold as I list my woes. 

My main woe was what Mikuta did with Sona’s character.

Sona would NEVER come to love Enyo of her own volition, for the same reason that she never came to love anybody in her 7-8 years at the academy: they all actively support Godolia’s tyranny and imperialism, while Sona’s character is built around her hatred and resistance of these qualities. Enyo is one of those active supporters, when he’s literally in the best position possible to enact change. I get that Enyo is a scared kid, and there is a lot of time spent in this book showing how these characters are just kids having to make impossible choices, so I’m not trying to condemn or not condemn him as a person. I am making the point that while Sona might see herself in Enyo, or come to understand him, she wouldn’t love someone who made the choices he did, and CERTAINLY not to the level that she loves her family and Eris. It conflicts with the core of her character, solidly established in the first book. Making Sona love Enyo felt like a lazy writing choice so that there was a reason why Enyo didn’t die in the first half, thus giving this book its existence.

 

The brainwashing trope was not done well here.

What triggered Sona’s proper break in her corruption? Why was she not confused over what was real and what she could trust seeing as either side was telling her the other side was corrupting her? Why do we not get more of a reaction from Sona over having had her worst nightmare come true? Where is her panic over what’s been happening to her family, her desperation over seeing them?

 

Ironically, there is a deus ex machina element of this book.

It was way too convenient that a whole contingency of mechas who had escaped Godolia and were hiding out were discovered in this book, providing the perfect force with which to rebel against Godolia. It would not have been hard to foreshadow their existence in the first instalment.

 

The world-building was again a bit naff. We were still lacking the bigger picture and the cultural element that I wanted to see, as explained in my review of Gearbreakers. 

The issue I had plot-wise with the latter part of Gearbreakers unfortunately characterised the whole plot of Godslayers. It was a bit too predictable, a bit too repetitive to be engaging, especially with the litany of other issues I had with the book. 

Something about the writing style didn’t click for me this time around. It felt like the tense would chance mid-sentence and I would often get confused about what was meant by the author. However, I still loved how emotionally raw the prose was, as it could realistically depict teenagers facing a dystopian world. 

This is a lot of negatives, I know. 2.75 stars may be a confusing rating to give it, but there were 3-4 elements which pulled through. The first being the romance, which was still written fantastically. Mikuta also nailed the found family element with her scenes of domesticity. The mecha fights were again strong; I especially loved reading the underwater mecha fight as this was something I hadn’t seen before. Finally, even though she was a bit stagnant in terms of development, Eris was still an interesting character to read from and I still fully felt for her. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Murder, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, War, and Gun violence

Moderate: Grief, Gore, Cursing, Suicide, Blood, and Vomit

Minor: Confinement, Physical abuse, Ableism, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Major: mind control, loss of a loved one Minor: gambling, drowning

salemander's review against another edition

5.0

“Is it not so much easier to love when you know how it feels?” 
this book fucking broke me. I will be billing the author for my therapy. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Gaslighting, Suicide, and Grief

pixelpigeon's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I LOVED THIS DUOLOGY. The twists! The turns! I never knew what was coming next!! Sona and Eris' love for each other is so sweet. Jenny is a stone cold badass, and I loved her relationship with Zamaya. I also thought the platonic relationship between Sona and Enyo was really sweet and complex.

I read the ebook versions from the library but I just purchased physical copies so I can have these books forever.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Medical content and Suicide

Minor: Death of parent

thaliareads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

4.0

Gearbreakers was a no-brainer 5 star for me, but for some reason, I struggled through Godslayers. I'm not sure if I wasn't as invested once I got through the cliff-hanger left by the first book or if it was the fact I had to speed up the audio book to finish it in time with my library check out, or even the fact that I was not feeling well and probably didn't have full brain operation to comprehend, but it just didn't click in the same way. However, I still enjoyed the book when I finished it, and I loved the characters. I think I'll have to re-read this at some point and read the physical book instead of listening to the audio so that I fully absorb all of the content. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Violence, War, Suicide, and Torture

Minor: Confinement

Overall, this book does deal with the overall themes of trying to finish a war, and with that there is all varieties of violence and some more graphically described injuries. Minor spoiler, less so after the content of the first book:

The first part of the book starts with Sona in control of the enemy again. While she's not technically held captive she still very much is. This time the torture morphed more from physical into the mental. Those around her were trying to completely change the way her past was described and how she saw the family she came to love.

. There is one big spoiler that has to due with the appearance of suicide. I'll include it here in case it helps to know what to expect:

At the end, the Zenith does jump out of a window, killing themselves. It is quick, and not graphic, but it is a poignant moment.

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invisibleninjacat's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful 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

4.0

This is even more intense than the first book in the duology - everything feels even more gritty and real. Mikuta definitely wants to make sure you remember that all of these characters are kids forced into untenable positions, and they're all doing the best they can with what they have. The storyline with the Zenith is especially interesting that way. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death and Injury/Injury detail

zoiejanelle's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

(Praying the author never reads this review because I desperately want to be friends with her, but I’m going to be honest here!)
Godslayers pales in comparison to Gearbreakers, but was overall a good book that brought much more depth to the overarching conflicts in the series. The main reason this book isn’t a 5/5 for me is the middle… it is just so slow… which I understand. This series is, at its core, about war, and war can be excruciatingly boring. I didn’t experience the same sort of thrill that I got from book 1. The payoff, though, was worth it! 
I also got lost in Mikuta’s writing. In book 1, the poetic style was charming, romantic. In this book I was confused and had to re-read several very important passages to understand what was going on. I totally understood the point of the style. It lends itself to allowing the reader to have startling, emotional realizations and experience what the characters were experiencing through sensory detail, but I’m dumb and need action scenes to be very clear or I can’t visualize the scene. 
As for the good stuff…
This book explored more of Jenny’s character as well as Eris’s crew which was really fun. I also loved the new characters — especially Enyo — and reading how they interacted with our original cast. The twists and turns were great, and I must have said “oh, shit!” at least ten times (especially towards the end). I was very scared that this would be an ambiguous ending, and in some ways it was, but please rest assured this is a hopeful ending and provided the much-deserved closure our characters needed. I still highly recommend this series and it will hold a very special place in my heart for years to come. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, War, and Violence

Moderate: Gore, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Blood, Mental illness, Torture, and Grief

Minor: Vomit and Suicide