Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

74 reviews

shetland_pone's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Slavery, Grief, and Pregnancy

brokencastles's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

Such an amazing book as always from the Grishaverse, I wanted to to go on forever if I’m honest!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexism, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Addiction and Fatphobia

tomi_delano's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring tense fast-paced

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

4.0

An emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. I fell more and more in love with familiar characters and some new ones. I got very angry at other familiar characters. Spectacular writing from Leigh Bardugo as usual. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Miscarriage, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Xenophobia, Blood, and Death of parent

Minor: Body shaming and Bullying

citymouse's review against another edition

3.0

Nina deserves to have her own series and her story entwined with Nikolai makes quite literally no sense. The book was good, but I would have preferred to see them as individual books rather than alternating between stories many lands apart. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Moderate: Child abuse, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, and Abortion

Minor: Animal death, Body horror, Infertility, Medical content, Religious bigotry, and Suicide attempt

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

3.5

Not my favorite Grishaverse novel (that still goes to Crooked Kingdom), but I like seeing what's happening with some of the characters after that! I'll admit, there's definitely a cliffhanger here and I've heard that Rule of Wolves is even better. My library copy needs to get in now so I can read it!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Violence, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child death, and Miscarriage

gothicmoon's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

revisiting nikolai and zoya in their own stories, by a much more experienced author... i am overwhelmed. i loved the main characters of this story. recurring characters such as adrik, leoni, and the rest of the triumvirate remain weak and rather unmemorable as side characters.

not five stars because nina's story doesn't really connect with nikolai and zoya's. it just feels like two books smashed together, and even though i was interested in both, the cuts were annoying. i didn't want to put nikolai's story down nor nina's once i got back into it, but together they were disconnected. it doesn't help that nikolai's story branches into two later and the three stories just get in each other's way. 

nina is bi

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Minor: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Drug use, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Suicide, Vomit, Trafficking, Grief, and Pregnancy

valyn_grebe's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Drug use, Gun violence, and Grief

Minor: Animal death, Child abuse, Miscarriage, Sexism, Slavery, Vomit, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy

libbyhb's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny 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

3.5

God bless Leigh Bardugo for giving the people what they want - a Nikolai and Zoya focused series with crossovers from the original trilogy and the Six of Crows duology. Fan service at its finest. I enjoyed King of Scars, but it was so jam-packed with characters on separate journeys that it felt a little disjointed and whiplash-y at times. And honestly, after reading this right before Rule of Wolves, it took me a moment to remember what even happened in this book! I liked Nina's storyline and watching her embrace her powers while struggling with her grief - although Leoni and Adrik felt a little underdeveloped as characters. Oh and WHAT is the deal with constantly pairing off characters in Grishaverse books! I love a love story more than anything but sometimes random characters don't need to get together! Isaak's narrative was also really interesting to me, and one of the arcs that felt the most complete in the story. Nikolai and Zoya had some cool stuff going on, but at the end of the day I guess I didn't really care about their relationship enough to care about their back and forth. A perfectly good installment in the Grishaverse, and full of fun one-off moments with our favorite characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, and Drug use

outsidestar's review against another edition

adventurous emotional slow-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

4.0

This book was a lot less about Nikolai and a lot more about Zoya and Nina than I expected. I still haven't made up my mind on whether that's a bad thing, a good thing, or just a thing.

I found that, as much as I loved Nina in Six of Crows, I didn't really care about her story line other than for the references to Matthias, Jesper, Kaz and the rest of the SoC gang.

Then there's Nikolai's and Zoya's story, where Nikolai is basically a side character. I didn't dislike Zoya in Shadow and Bone, especially not by the end of the trilogy, and I really enjoyed her story and arc in King of Scars. Shout-out to her relationship with Juris, by the way. Chef's kiss.

"You are strong enough to survive the fall."

 "You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself." 

And let me point out our beloved king Nikolai. I feel like his character was basically used to make Zoya more likeable and give the rest of the crew at the palace something to do (which I didn't really care much about either). He was a side character in his own book. I was expecting the awesomeness of the Nikolai we met in Siege and Storm, the Nikolai who charmed us all into loving him, but here he was kind of... dull? As dull as Nikolai can get, that is.

Although I did find this book was kind of slow at the beginning, I was happy to see all the crew back together again. I loved the dynamics between them, seeing how they have become a family, especially the friendship between Genya and Zoya, and I really really really hope Nikolai and Zoya will realize they are perfect for each other and actually dare to act on it. That's basically all I care about, I honestly don't care about

the war looming in the horizon or the return of you-know-who.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction

Moderate: Drug use and Grief

Minor: Miscarriage

emmagrace's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Grief

Moderate: Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Slavery, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Cursing, Miscarriage, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry