Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Nightbane by Alex Aster

7 reviews

hrubelle's review

adventurous dark emotional sad 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

4.5

I am team Oro until the day I die. The ending of this book destroyed me

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore

spatterson7's review against another edition

adventurous 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, War, Death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

Moderate: Self harm, Body horror, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Death of parent, Alcohol, Cannibalism, Child death, Vomit, and Cursing

selestre's review

dark emotional 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Minor: Alcohol, Cannibalism, Death, Murder, Gore, War, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Self harm, Kidnapping, Blood, Child death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Vomit

amethyst15's review

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.0

Should not be labeled as a YA book! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Toxic relationship, Gore, Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Death, and War

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, and Drug use

tacochelle's review

challenging dark slow-paced

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

1.0

If there is one good thing about this book, it's that I felt compelled to take frequent breaks to read stuff that I knew I'd enjoy. Just because this book gives me a fucking headache. It's all the same problems I had with the first book but amplified. We bounce from scene to scene, always one big disaster after another with little to really connect it all together. Magic rulebreaking items like the starstick and the super duper healing potion are overused and abused. It makes the stakes so low despite the fucking war prepping and monster attacks. I don't care about the intricacies of aging between the different realms, Isla is barely an adult in a horny love triangle with two guys that are centuries older than her. It feels so gross. And what the fuck was that ending? That's not an ending to a book, that's a cliffhanger ending for chapters. I feel like I've wasted my time here.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, War, Toxic relationship, and Gore

taryn_g's review

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

Moderate: Gore, Child death, Self harm, Death of parent, and Sexual content

rosesofthespring's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

This book kind of broke my heart. I, stupidly, let myself get my hopes up. The majority of this novel is good. I mean - actually good. Way better than I ever thought it would be. I let myself pretend that Lightlark 1 was all a dream, and I was having myself a good, self-indulgent time.

Isla's back and she's all grown up. Or, at least, she's aware of the severity of her arrested development and she's grappling with some real unchecked PTSD. She's unraveling the ways she's been used and abused by the people who were supposed to be protecting her, but she doesn't have much time to hide away and heal her own trauma. Her people are starving, an entire second realm is suddenly depending on her, and war is coming to Lightlark. 

For most of the book, the writing is compelling, the pacing is immaculate, and the characters are given time to develop and shine. There are many new and returning women who get the opportunity to be complex and interesting. Even Cleo gets a chance to be sympathetic, something that was staunchly denied her in the first novel. 

Everything was going so well that for a single, shining moment, I even let myself believe that maybe the guy who is a walking red flag would turn out to be less than amazing. Maybe, I thought in my foolish mind, maybe Alex Aster will be bold enough to say that the man who is nice to Isla but cruel to everyone else is not nice. Maybe the man whose first resort is always violence, who brags about the thousands of people he's killed, who is willing to kill thousands more without bothering to attempt diplomacy... will end up being slightly less than desirable.

Like I said. I was stupid. 

90% of this book threatens to be incredible. The last 10% returns the story to perfect, complacent YA predictability. Then there's the cliffhanger. Remember that pacing I complimented? Yeah, that's destroyed as well.

I don't know if I'll read the third one. Reading a bad book is one thing. Reading a book that gets my hopes up and then feeds them into a trash compactor while I'm forced to watch is quite another.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Sexual violence, Torture, Murder, Child death, Confinement, Death of parent, and Child abuse

Minor: Addiction, Drug use, Slavery, Drug abuse, Gore, and Suicidal thoughts