Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

42 reviews

booksalacarte's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

4.5

First read- 3⭐️
No Written Review

Reread- 4.5⭐️ 1.5🌶️

Multi POV
Slow burn
Found Family
Mythical Creatures
Magic
War



Tw: discussion on infant loss

This series is a lot. There is always a lot going on, but the multi POV shifts solidly enough that you don’t feel jostled all over the place. Every character has an important viewpoint and unique voice. 

I do think that some of the characters had kinda big personality shifts from the last book to this one. Mainly Chaol and Aelin. No maybe they aren’t endgame… but all of a sudden finding out that Chaol was having an illicit affair the summer before the champions competition and acted in a way that he had quickies in alleys??? I don’t buy it.

And Aelin while I appreciate the grief that was focused on in Heir of Fire… in Queen of Shadows she was working well below her standard badassery. As if her entire personality became dependent on Rowan.

And what is up with the “he seemed to say” and “she seemed to say” conversations?! Full blown, detailed conversations all with facial expressions. I bet they looked like absolute idiots to the people around them when they happened………… so weird. Just make them telepathic already. 


Starting the story with Dorian’s POV was so important to see his depression and mindset since his situation was the last we read about in Heir of Fire. It definitely put in some tension and anxiety when it came to no one else knowing what was going on.

Knowing everything definitely makes the reread fun and heightens my ratings… but I am definitely not blowing through them on a binge the way I did on the first read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Cannibalism, Confinement, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Death

annamary54's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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

4.75

i will give a full review later, mostly gave it a 4.75 cause i didn’t care about the witches until the last quarter of the book

it’s later: 
honestly reading these back to back i can’t remember what was heir of fire and what was queen of shadows, but i’m gonna try my best. in the last one i struggled to care about the witches at all, and the first 3/4 i thought were very slow. this one definitely moved a lot faster from the beginning. i did start to care about the witches in this one, but like i said it took me until the last quarter to really care about that whole story line. all of the books before this one felt like exposition and this one actually had some action in it. i gave it such a high rating because i really was engaged and didn’t want to stop reading basically the whole time. (except the witch chapters, i’d usually use those as a stopping point)

I did NOT see adieon father reveal coming, but that spices stuff up for sure.

i also shouldn’t have read acotar before this cause now the romance is so pg to me, i’m like COME ON LETS GET TO IT, but whatever i’m still reading kicking my legs behind me and twirling my hair. it’s hard to write anything about this book cause so much happened, and so many story lines. loved the development in all the characters. and i’m excited to see more of the ones that haven’t fully bloomed.

VERY happy about the Lysandra redemption arc because i kinda loved her from the start…although i do have a problem loving villains. (arobynn…for a lil bit, and lorcan when he was still in bad guy mode)

overall, i rate based on how engaged i was with a book, and i was VERY engaged except the witch chapters for the first 3/4 of the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Gore, Body horror, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Violence, Murder, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Pregnancy and Miscarriage

Minor: Sexual content, Drug use, Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Alcohol, and Excrement

booknerd_life's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Murder, Vomit, Emotional abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Slavery, and Violence

Minor: Ableism

im_eebee's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective 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

4.75

This book was just amazing. Everything picked up in the last book, and this one just ran with it in the best way possible. I have to give it 4.75 because I technically didn’t like it as much as Heir of Fire, but this is definitely one of my top reads ever.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Blood, Kidnapping, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Ableism, Sexual violence, Classism, Grief, Gaslighting, and Murder

yarisbooksandbevs's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

Oh I loved this book. There was so much emotion, so much growth and so much heart.

So many characters developed. I love all of them. They all have loveable qualities and witty banter. (Chaol is eh. He was pissing me off in the beginning). The women in this story are absolutely amazing. Aelin is so smart and cunning. Kaltain’s story was so sad and beautiful. Lysandra really surprised me and I love her. Manon is an absolute icon. Asterin made me want to cry.

I can’t wait to see these characters win this war.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Grief, Physical abuse, Slavery, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Violence, Child death, and Blood

Moderate: Miscarriage, Body horror, Child abuse, War, and Torture

Minor: Pregnancy, Sexual content, Vomit, Emotional abuse, and Genocide

rafacolog's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Death, Violence, Murder, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Torture, Blood, Racism, and Sexual harassment

britwalsh16's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

I could not put this book down! Omg! It was sooooo good!!! 
Watching Aelin become who she was always meant to be & fight for her loved ones & what is right, is inspiring! The growth she has had since book 1 is in incredible! 
And the bromance between Chaol & Dorian is like my favorite bromance ever! Coming in second only to my bat boys. 
All the characters have incredible growth in this book! & I could go on about how much I love them all, but then this will get really long, so I won’t. 
But my favorite character is Rowan! & having him not being in the first third of the book gave me serious withdrawal! My heart just leaped out of my chest when he finally showed up! I was so ecstatic! I can’t wait to read more of him, & more of his relationship with Aelin! My heart! 💜 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, War, Classism, Death, Child abuse, Colonisation, Grief, Physical abuse, Slavery, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, Torture, Blood, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Body horror, Cannibalism, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Abandonment, Alcohol, Bullying, Child death, Genocide, Cursing, Medical content, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, and Excrement

Minor: Miscarriage and Pregnancy

amanda_reads13's review against another edition

emotional hopeful 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

4.5

Aelin returns to Adarlan to take back her kingdom and take down the King. 

This was definitely the best of the series so far! The characters and world building is getting better and better with each book. I found the plot to be a little slow at first, but picked up really quickly. 

Let's talk about the women, because they are so badass:
-Aelin has embraced her identity and is no longer the annoying, bratty girl from the first few books. Finally she has become a fierce, strong Queen who will do anything to protect her people. I am interested to see the directions her relationship with Rowan takes and how her people react to her return. 

-Lysandra has on of my favourite arcs in the book series. We start off absolutely hating her due to her rivalry with Celaena, but she has been redeemed! She is such a fascinating character. As a child she discovered that

she is a shape shifter and was cast out of her home because of it. She had to survive on her own until she was trained as a courtesan.

We are lead to believe that she is this prissy, spoiled woman, but she is ferocious, loyal, and cunning.

Arobynn got what was coming to him (finally!).

-I am loving the direction of Manon's storyline and interested to see whether she continues to kneel to her grandmother or strikes against her. The witches developing empathy and compassion is a really interesting angle to the story. 

-Even the supporting characters, Nesryn, Kaltain, and Elide, added so much to the story. All strong and tough in their own rights. 

The male characters, though interesting, couldn't hold a candle to the female characters. I am intrigued with Lorcan's character and have a feeling he is going to be pretty important in the next few books. 

I enjoyed both Aedion and Rowan, but both are quite similar characters. Both are driven by the need to protect Aelin at all costs. I am hoping to get a bit more depth and backstory to both of these characters in the next few books. 

Dorian's storyline

of being taken over by a vlag prince was a smart choice for this book. We are able to see the fight in him and hopefully he bring that fight into his role as King. 
The fact that Duke Perrington was actually taken taken over by Erawan and was the real puppet master was very unexpected, the King was just another puppet!

Tropes: fantasy, revenge, returned Queen

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Emotional abuse

wishlissa's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.75

My favorite in the TOG series so far! This feels like the mid-season finale and I'm excited for it to come back with a bang. Every once in a while something happens in an SJM book that's frustrating -- but where other authors draw it out, SJM resolves the characters' stumbles and issues in a way that's timely and satisfying. What more could you want?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Violence

Moderate: Colonisation and Confinement

Minor: Physical abuse, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Emotional abuse, Blood, Death, Vomit, Slavery, Torture, Murder, and Pregnancy

dalek_caan's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful 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

5.0

This book had me on the edge of my seat. The last one in the series was a little bit slow to read, but this one was moving from start to finish. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, Gore, War, Death, Torture, Suicide attempt, Slavery, Sexual violence, Self harm, Rape, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Murder, Miscarriage, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Confinement, Colonisation, Child abuse, Body horror, and Blood

Minor: Ableism