Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Ruinsong

Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Ruinsong, by Julia Ember

12 reviews

arieloley's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

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

2.5

This book has so much potential. I loved the concept and it was clearly a highly developed world. Some of the descriptions were really beautiful and drew pictures, while others felt forced, especially the automatic and brusque description of everyone’s skin colour. Overall, there was a sense of virtue signalling, which isn’t bad but felt like the author reallyyy wanted her audience to know where her politics lie. I think it’s great, I would just prefer it to be written in more smoothly. Also, parts of the plot felt quite rushed, and information sometimes seemed to pop up completely out of no where.

Content Warnings

samsonian's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional 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

4.5

EEHAJSHSHSHAHAHA THIS BOOK IS LESBIAN YEARNING IN UNDER 400 PAGES PLS LET THERE BE A SECOND BOOK 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Content Warnings

letrickster's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark tense slow-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

2.75

It was fine? I'm not a huge YA person so that definitely affected my opinion but it really just didn't do it for me. The romance and the ending were incredibly rushed and it all felt like it got resolved way too neatly and easily. Despite this, it was also incredibly slow. I really enjoyed the first quarter or so of the book. I think the tension was set up well and the scenes were suitably unsettling. Then things slowed down pretty hard, and very little happened. As it wore on I just got very bored, I almost dnfed but I managed to skim through to the end, although it didn't much improve my opinion. I really wish the middle section

Spoiler

when Cadence and Remi are together at the palace was longer and had some more intrigue. It felt like it was only a few days, which in my mind, didn't feel like enough time for any of the things that happened to occur. Remi was threatened, but I feel like she didn't really end up being used against Cadence at all. The stakes just felt really low.

I wanted to romance to be good, and I felt like it would've been if it had more time to develop, but it felt really unearned.

The characters were just fine, they're teenagers so I can excuse a lot of their choices behaviour based on that, but I just ended up not really caring about them. I liked Cadence a lot at the beginning, but idk by the end I was just kinda done.

I really wish I liked it more, I wanted to, I think it's decent YA but it just Really did not do it for me.

Content Warnings

grey_jayne's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional 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? Yes

4.5

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Beware, there is dog death and some vomit, but this shows how harrowing the emotional abuse dealt at Cadence is. This is a dark sapphic story and Julia Ember knew the assignment. It's dark, it's romantic, with intense emotional stakes and perpetual danger. It's glorious...and in a world where magic is sung! I love both Cadence and Remi and their story is painfully yet beautifully queer. There's hope in the end, it's not all sorrow and tiny glances, and be prepared for singer mage battles while also their gentle healing magicks. Ruinsong is both complex and very real. So worth your time and attention.

Content Warnings

tinysierra's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

-I love the idea of song magic! That was the coolest part of the book
-Friends to lovers
-polyamory (side characters)
-As other reviews said… it was kind of bland and there was no real build up. It was a decent story but the plot and the romance in it were not really strong.

I recommend Of Fire and Stars over Ruinsong because it still has a sapphic couple, elemental magic, royalty/court politics, a similar scene to one in this book Spoiler
where the couple rides a horse together. it’s cute lol
and the romance in that book stands out more.

Content Warnings

sarah984's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I thought this was a really fun idea for a story, and the singing magic was cool. Everything was tense and the stakes felt high. Most of the characters were interesting.

However, the characters we spend our time focused on are probably the least interesting of the bunch. They spend a lot of time complaining and making impulsive decisions (and then complaining that people don't trust them not to make impulsive decisions) and you only kind of hear about other characters doing cool things in the background. The ending wraps up extremely fast so a lot of the victories don't really feel earned. I get the idea of noting every character’s skintone instead of making special note of who wasn't white, but it really drove home how white the core cast still was so I don't know if it helped.

Also this is a nitpick but if you're retelling Phantom of the Opera and you drop ZERO chandeliers? You're doing it wrong.

Content Warnings

olafsl0stcarrot's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

starccato's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

Content Warnings

cameronreads's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark tense fast-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? No

3.5

I really liked the magic system in here - using songs as spellcasting was super interesting and unique. I liked the world as well, and the author did a good job of showing just how awful the queendom was, although I would have liked to see more of the Expelled settlement. In fact, that whole section of the book could have been expanded on, in my opinion. I also would have liked to see more of the rebellion. I don't know if I just love books with loads of POVs, but for me it would have been cool to see from Nolan's POV (not just because he was my favourite character). In general, actually, I just felt like more could have happened. There were practically zero side plots, and considering this book is quite short for a fantasy it wouldn't have been any harm to add some, and I think it would have been helpful to expand the world a little more. Most of the book felt almost like build up, and I was actually expecting it to be the first book in a duology until I got to the end. However, I did really like how the plot progressed, and I was engaged throughout the story. It wasn't entirely unique as uprising plotlines, but the magic system brought something new to the table, and the fact that the nobles were discriminated against by the queen was unique as well. I liked that it was set in court, and that said court was pretty different from most you read in fantasy.
I did really like the main cast, and both the queen and Ren were really interesting antagonists to read about. However, and this is complete personal preference, I did think the romance was a bit lacking. When I was expecting it to be a duology, I was really liking the idea of a slow burn, and thought the hints of romance were being done really nicely, but when I realised those 'hints' were the romance, I was a little underwhelmed. It could have been utilised really nicely and been a great side plot, but it was barely there at all. Again, that's personal preference, but still.

Content Warnings

booksthatburn's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

RUINSONG is a slow burn sapphic tale of falling in love under brutality, and daring to hope for a better future even after being groomed into complicity. The opening chapters are brutal, slowly but inexorably describing a reign of death and torture in which a powerful queen demands complicity and service in exchange for life. The plot is at least 90% slowly inching towards maybe doing something concrete about it while an ever escalating series of discomforts befall the main characters, then the ending is very dramatic and sudden. I refer it to a series of discomforts because the worst stuff happens around Cadence rather than to her (very early on bad things happen to Remi and then keep happening). There's a sense (usually backed up by dramatic asides and tales of woe) that much worse things are constantly happening somewhere to somebody, but since they aren't literally happening to Cadence she's been reluctant to try and change things. I don't have a great sense of what the revolutionaries want other than to not be tortured and killed by the Queen (this is, admittedly, a very sound basis for a revolution so it's okay that other demands aren't a focus of the narrative). I think that I personally prefer books with more specific political intrigue with their revolutions, but that's not what this book is trying to be. The romance is slow burn, since Remi and Cadence don't feel free to do much of anything, let alone broach the topic of being girls who like girls. It barely feels safe for them to be friends, since Remi's very proximity is being used to control Cadence.

The worldbuilding is fine, it's not very complicated because the story invests its detail in the Queen and the two girls, and the people around them. One thing this portrays very well is emotional abuse and manipulation, and the way that a combination of threats plus unpredictable enforcement can be used to break someone down and make everything feel pointless. The story is about whether Cadence will finally have something that it's worth standing up for, and I appreciate how the story shows why she didn't fight for things before. Even if her reasons seem silly or you can imagine yourself doing more in her shoes (some of her fellow characters think they might have done more), the characterization is so well done to explain why she hadn't before, but without excusing what she's done and continues to do.

Content Warnings

More...