Reviews tagging 'Child death'

A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab

26 reviews

readingwithkaitlyn's review

adventurous sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Grief, Death of parent, Mental illness, Murder, Colonisation, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, War, Gore, Torture, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Suicide, Medical content, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Physical abuse, Confinement, Child abuse, and Classism

Minor: Slavery, Animal cruelty, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Vomit, Homophobia, and Animal death

imaginaryalchemist's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

The Shades of Magic Trilogy comes to a close in A Conjuring of Light. It was a fun fantasy ride! 

I'll start with the things I did like. First, I love the characters. They had good chemistry and played off each other well. I enjoyed the banter between Kell and Alucard. I know some people didn't like Lila, but I did, I thought she was fun and pretty badass. I saw the romance between her and Kell coming a mile away but I still enjoyed it. I thought they were good together.

Speaking of romance, I loved the subplot with Rhy and Alucard. I feel VE Schwab handled it tastefully. Speaking as a queer person, queer romance often feels like it's pandering to us. 

I really wanted more time with these characters. In my opinion, Schwab's character writing is pretty strong. They felt like they could be real people, even the background characters. Rhy ended up being my favorite.

I nearly started crying when his parents died, I felt so bad for him. I wanted to reach into the book and give him a hug. My boy suffered so much.

Now for some of my criticisms. For the story, I enjoyed it overall but felt it dragged at some points. The ship voyage in particular seemed to go on for a bit too long. 

I also had a lot of unanswered questions at the end.

I was hoping Kell would naturally remember his past - since he was told the memory spell should wear off over time and he burned the note on how to remove it. I wanted to know where he actually came from, and what his birth name was. I also don't recall Lila's missing eye being fully addressed. I had a theory that the black stone that appeared in book one would end up being the eye. I haven't read the sequel trilogy so I don't know if the question is answered there.

So, overall I really liked this trilogy! It was the first thing I'd read from VE Schwab and I'll definitely read more of her work in the future. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Confinement, Blood, Child death, Body horror, Death, Violence, War, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Alcohol and Cursing

smkoontz's review

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and War

Moderate: Child death, Violence, Murder, Body horror, and Death

whiterabbitslibrary's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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? No

4.5

Loved this, a great end to the series. But it was long and there was a lot happening. I had to keep going back to check things earlier in the book and even earlier in the series a couple of times. Just a warning that it’s a brain engaged kind of book! In the plus side we get so many delightfully fleshed out characters and some really good development for our main gang who I love deeply with all my heart.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Child abuse, Gore, Pandemic/Epidemic, Child death, and Kidnapping

msradiosilence's review

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Torture, Classism, Death of parent, Blood, Cursing, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Alcohol, Body horror, Child death, and Grief

Moderate: War

Minor: Pregnancy and Sexual content

arwen_ds's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Blood

Moderate: Homophobia

Minor: Child death

purplepenning's review

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Death, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Murder, Physical abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Grief, Self harm, Slavery, Alcohol, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, and Classism

Minor: Sexual content

halliot's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Hate crime, and Injury/Injury detail

madmadmaddymad's review

adventurous emotional tense 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? Yes

5.0

What a fantastic conclusion to an epic series.

I had to put the book down for a few weeks after Anisa died, but I’m glad I picked it back up again. I needed to know how the journey would finally end.  And the loss of so many characters really hit me, but the loss of Anisa for whatever reason hit me so damn hard. 

I loved the relationship between Kell and Lila finally getting somewhere! And likewise, Rhy and Alucard were similarly easy to root for. 

I’m also surprised at how much I came to love Holland’s character throughout the course of this book.

If you think bout it, the first book is Kell’s book, the second book is Lila’s, and this book is Holland’s, and I was rooting for him so hard. 

I’m gonna have quite the book hangover after this incredible series. Thank you, V.E. Schwab, for being an incredible author and for taking me on this adventure. 

Anoshe.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Biphobia

asipofcozy's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful sad 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

Going into A Conjuring of Light I didn't have many expectations as I found the 2nd book to be slow and lacking in the plot department, man was I blown away by this book in the first 20 pages.

Schwab has a way of writing tense scenes, mixed with lighthearted banter, mixed with real emotions. You could feel the pain and frustration of the characters when it was needed but you could also feel those moments where they were trying to make a good/funny situation out of a bad one. The bantering was never misplaced.

I felt overall this has to be one of the best books I have read in a while with really great character development. I felt by the end that many of our characters had the closure they needed to move on from there pasts. Yet at the same time there was that pain still lingering, that everything while not great would be okay one day. Kell, Lila, Rhy, Alucard, and Holland have come such a long way since A Darker Shade of Magic. Each have grown into themselves and their power. 

I could definitely see myself picking up more books by V.E. Schwab. If not for her amazing plot and worldbuilding then for her ability to create loveable and rich characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Torture, Blood, Child death, Emotional abuse, and War