Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne

10 reviews

singalana's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Maybe I read this book at a bad time, but getting through it felt like a chore. It’s a shame because it’s in no way a bad book!

The Shadow of the Gods is the first instalment in a Norse mythology-inspired fantasy series by John Gwynne. This is not his first series, but I haven’t read this previous work. I’d classify this book as grimdark - if you’re a fan of epic battles, grisly deaths and vengeance-fueled characters, this book might be for you. 

In this fantasy world, the gods have killed each other in a fearsome battle and nearly destroyed the world in the process. Those with the gods’ blood in their veins are hunted and enslaved. We follow three main characters; Orka, Varg, and Elvar, who all have their quests and secrets. 

Two out of the three main characters are women: Orka, who lives in the wilderness with her family, and Elvar, who is a member of a mercenary group called the Battle-Grim. Varg is trying to find out what happened to his sister. All the characters are interesting, and I found myself caring for them, especially Varg and Orka.

The world is rich and interesting, and it’s revealed bit by bit. I enjoyed the writing in every other aspect except one: the author loved to use the word “thought-cage”, which in this instance refers to the thinking mind. The word appeared in almost every chapter, and every time, it managed to jolt me out of the story. 

I had no idea what I was getting into when I started reading this book: the blurb is absolutely useless and tells nothing about the book. If I had seen this in a bookstore, I would not have bought it based on that. Alas, I got it as a gift, so here we are. Perhaps the lack of a blurb hurt my reading experience because I had no idea where we were headed with the story. Since this is a series, the first book was pretty much a set p for the series. Even though a lot happened, I felt the book really started to intrigue me only in the last third or so. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Violence, War, and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent, Kidnapping, Grief, Animal death, and Slavery

Minor: Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Cursing, Child abuse, Excrement, and Alcohol

star_charter152's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Cursing, War, Grief, and Slavery

Minor: Excrement, Pregnancy, Confinement, and Fire/Fire injury

valjeanval's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

My book club billed this one as "reading Skyrim," and I think that's pretty spot on for better and worse. The characters and setting are all pretty excellent with great world building. I especially enjoy viking warrior mom even if I kept misreading her name as Okra instead of Orka. Honestly, I appreciate everything Gwynne does to subvert the patriarchal norms of historical fiction and saying, this is still fiction. This is fantasy. Let's just make a society where the genders are more or less even because we can.

The plot, however, is meandering and constantly interrupted by random encounter fight scenes.  Fun to play as a game, less fun to read. And those fight scenes are gory to a level that I just don't enjoy. It also suffers from being only half a book, and I'm not sure I enjoyed it enough to pursue the sequel right away. We shall see, but overall, a unique piece of norse-inspired fantasy though not entirely my cuppa.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, War, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Cursing, Torture, Child abuse, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

siomhaw's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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: Gore, War, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Kidnapping, Classism, Death, Murder, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Slavery

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, Death of parent, and Body shaming

Minor: Excrement

meowster18's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? No

5.0

This book was a journey that I was willing to go on from page one. This was beautifully written. Entirely immersive. I felt everything from the love of Thorkiel to war of the Battle-Grime and Bloodsworn, To Orka’s pain and rage, and lastly Varg’s and Elvar journey to discovery and Battle-Fame. A must read. The ending had me gasping and yelling “no f-ing way!”. Can’t wait to sink my teeth into the next book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, War, Alcohol, Cursing, Kidnapping, Grief, Violence, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gore, and Body horror

Please look up trigger warnings for this book. It is very gorey

changelingreader_adrian's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Was a temporary DNF because it wasn't catching me and I had other stuff I needed/wanted to get to, but I liked this enough to pick it back up once a hold on an audiobook I forgot I placed came in. Very slow for like the first half-ish and then got really going and good. So. Medium pace is the best I can give it since it's slow and then pretty fast

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Violence, Vomit, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Torture

Moderate: Alcohol, War, Body horror, and Murder

Testicles and descriptions of them are a bit weirdly there, so be prepared for that

sennaje's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Alcohol, Animal death, Torture, Slavery, Vomit, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Blood, Body horror, Murder, and Gore

seanml's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

John Gwynne is a wonderful modern fantasy writer, and continues to be. This series continues with his signature style of multiple character points of view that slowly weave together as the story goes on. Plus, it’s Norse-inspired which you don’t see a lot of in fantasy for whatever reason. Oh yeah it’s hyper-violent, but luckily without the usual caveat that “it’s historically accurate so there needs to be rampant misogyny!” 7.5/10. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Death, Murder, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Trafficking, Body horror, Kidnapping, Medical content, Grief, Slavery, Stalking, and Vomit

Minor: Alcohol, Child abuse, Confinement, Torture, and Animal death

rlobel's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Sexual harassment and Sexism

travelseatsreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I've struggled with writing a review for this one as I really enjoyed some parts of the book but then felt like other sections were almost a chore.

What I Liked
-Amazing world building
-Some amazing sections of writing and lots of quotable lines.
-Lots of action and mythical creatures 
-Great female characters

What I Didn't Like 
-There were chunks where I was bored
-I felt most of the characters needed more depth
-It needs a glossary and character map. There are so many terms and characters to make sense of it's easy to get lost, especially for the first book of a series.

It's quite obviously a really well written book and is getting huge praise but for me I felt it was a little bit too much hard work for the pay off of the level of enjoyment I received from it. I've no doubt however that it will make for an amazing series.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Murder, War, Confinement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Slavery, Torture, and Violence