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beatriks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I’ll have to wrap most of my review in spoilers. Without spoiling anything, this book comes with some surprises that I liked, the world building is still amazing. El’s narration can be really funny:
So I followed her back to the yurt and let Mum give me a bowl of vegetable soup that tasted like it had been made with real vegetables, which might not sound very exciting to you, but what do you know.
Overall, I had a 2 year break in between book 2 and 3, that probably didn’t help.
Good points:
The whole enclave-building principle is genius
I like the “you’re already dead” principle
Less satisfying points
The way things end in the well.
Graphic: Torture, Death, and Grief
Moderate: War
dejanira's review against another edition
- 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 have only one controversial take that cost the book the 0.25 star:
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Abortion, Body horror, Blood, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Torture
nerdy_reader_9571's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Overall, though, I enjoyed reading it, and I thought that everything within the story fit the lore of the first two books well and provided a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Murder, Torture, and Violence
bakerindale's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Torture, and Abortion
firefenix14's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Torture
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, and War
Minor: Sexual content
blacksphinx's review against another edition
- 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 was getting really frustrated with the first half of the book. At least three times, a character would say a couple of sentences and then El would explain a ton of inferred details to us for several pages. We had some important plot threads established, and pages were ticking by with no progress being made on them. El spent a lot of time not doing a damn thing, thinking for pages about how she didn't know what to do. There was a decent chunk spent on her wanting to accomplish something I thought was extremely stupid and didn't understand her motives - and then, at almost the 50% mark, the chess pieces were finally all on the board and the game began.
I kept saying to myself "there's no way she can solve [plot thread] in [pages left]" and then she DID over and over again until I had every answer I wanted. I actually want to go back and reread the prior two books knowing what I know now, because the reveals in this book were set up long before she started drafting it, there's just no way. It is a little bit of a spoiler to say this, so just skip over it, but watching El walk away from Omelas made me cry. In this present moment of multiple genocides and an ongoing, stubbornly-ignored pandemic, it hit me just right. "You got us all out for good, and they're trying to start a war over the bones. There's a better way. We know there's a better way. And you're trying to find it."
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Torture, Grief, Gore, Confinement, and Drug use
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Classism
Minor: Vomit, Child death, Pregnancy, and Homophobia
catinaflatcap's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Body horror and Torture
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
gabeagenda's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Torture, Child death, Child abuse, and Violence
beccaand's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, Torture, Body horror, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Child abuse and War
Minor: Sexual content and Death of parent
e_haubz's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
Things I loved:
- The ending
- The importance of balance throughout - this gets introduced very early in Book 1, but the payoff isn’t until Book 3
- Liesel, the absolute MVP of multiple crises
- The magic system, and its consistency - and again, balance is key to it, I friggin’ LOVE that El’s mom literally gets around in the world on the strength of her incredible karma, and it works! It’s like the rules by which we want our world to function, but with, you know, monsters too
Things I do not love:
- Honestly… still a little confused about Ophelia’s motivations and backstory
- And I had a hard time, at times, following the logic of some plot points, because El herself is making logical leaps in real time
…but it all came together in the essential ways to make the end make sense.
So, I feel like I’m over-scoring slightly, but this book went so much deeper into a well-structured magic system, we got more of most of the characters we loved, and we got a glimpse of the outside world in a really fun globe-trotty way - all to close out a pretty evenly-paced series in a highly satisfying way. 4.5 seems right.
Moderate: Torture