Reviews with content warning for Confinement - The Prison Healer

This book did keep me up until 3 a.m. finishing it, so it was clearly entertaining. I really liked the unique premise, the interesting magic, the huge green flag that is Jaren, and the fantastic side characters Tipp and Naari, but I don't think this one will end up being a favorite.

I buddy read this with a friend and we both agreed that the part that annoyed us the most was the selective inner dialogue that made the ending/plot twist pretty unsatisfying. The book is written in third-person omniscient, so we have a window into Kiva's mind and her thoughts. However, I felt blindsided by the ending because there was little to no foreshadowing and Kiva's inner thoughts were conveniently silent on that front, possibly to make the ending more dramatic. Instead it felt more like not even the author knew where the story was going until the end. The ending was still good, but I like my plot twists to leave me wondering how I didn't put the pieces together sooner.

Would I still recommend this book? Yes. If you love YA fantasy that isn't too heavy on world building, has female characters who are still growing into themselves and their inner strength, and is entertaining, then I think you'll love it.

P.S. I'm reviewing these after reading the whole series and book three was my personal favorite.

Content Warnings

mirthesportel's review against another edition

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dark hopeful medium-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

the_jesus_fandom's review

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adventurous 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? It's complicated

3.5

I enjoyed this book and I especially loved Tipp (some of his scenes almost made me cry). All of the side characters were lovable, though, in their own ways. The book felt slow at times, but that's probably because my attention span has been bad. The descriptions were super good and especially the water trial was very stressful to read.

There was a bit of discrepancy in Kiva saying she helped everyone cause that was her job, regardless of what they did, but then she refuses to help a guard and actively makes his sickness worse.

So why exactly are you helping a person who killed his children but not a guard who sexually harasses people? Is it cause you didnt see the man kill his children but you did see the guard sexually harass people? Bit of a double standard.

My only major grievances: eyes don't have to have stone colours. Just say her eyes are yellow (amber).

And yeah, the plot twist. Not about Jaren, the one about Kiva. On the one hand it explains why her family was so sure of being able to rescue her, but on the other hand we saw her alone with Tilda various times. Why did she not call her "mother" then? I get that maybe she was still super on alert, but apparantly things were safe enough for her to tell the story of how her parents met. It also makes it a bit hypocritical that she was mad at Jaren for hiding his identity from her. And lastly, it does make the ending of this series pretty predictable. Jaren and Kiva will get together, thus uniting both sides, but not before Kiva does a lot of soul-searching and her angry siblings will push her to take her revenge. That relationship is going to break, we'll get lots of angst cause Kiva is heartbroken, etc. I think one of her siblings will probably die and his/her last words will either be for her to stop this fighting and make up or to continue the fight. I'm thinking it'll be the brother and he'll say the latter. Idk, if I'm wrong don't tell me, I want to read the books to see if I'm right!

Content Warnings