Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Iron Flame - Flammengeküsst: Roman | Die heißersehnte Fortsetzung des Fantasy-Erfolgs 'Fourth Wing' in wunderschön veredelter Ausstattung by Rebecca Yarros

20 reviews

sarahsbooklife's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

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

3.75

I enjoyed it. But it wasn't as good as the first one. It should've been shorter. And the miscommunication should not have last for practically the whole book. Because let's be honest that was annoying as fuck 🙄 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Sexual content, War, Blood, and Torture

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Alcohol and Misogyny

katvou's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Violence, Gore, Medical content, War, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Murder, Sexual content, Torture, Blood, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Body horror, Drug use, and Bullying

Minor: Suicide attempt, Excrement, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Self harm

micaelamariem's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

While not as good as Fourth Wing, I still enjoyed this book! It still sucked me into this fantasy world which is the escapism I’m always looking for. I love the dragons and the revolutions. I hate the jealousy trope though as well as the miscommunication trope and this was chock full of it. I am hoping that part of the relationship is all resolved and won’t have to be revisited in the rest of the series. I love Andarna so much. And the whole fourth wing second squad flame section. A lot of my theories were wrong but I’m looking forward to seeing where the books will go. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Colonisation, Confinement, Alcohol, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Torture, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, War, Violence, and Vomit

emilywemily6's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This book was so fun and entertaining to read! Though compared to the first in the series, the pacing was slower in the beginning and too fast towards the end. The ideas in this book felt less flushed out and I sometimes had to reread parts to make sure I understood what happened. The spice was 👌 though Xaden and Violet had a lot of miscommunication from not setting expectations for how they communicate and it got old. I love how we got to know the side characters better in this book! The squad is awesome. There were a few crazy twists at the end that make it so hard to wait for the next book! I’m not sure where this series is going for a total of five books, but I feel like this book could have easily been split into two.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, War, Animal death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Bullying, Panic attacks/disorders, Animal cruelty, Blood, Cursing, Death, Murder, and Body horror

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Classism

Minor: Ableism and Alcohol

katierosecrane's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-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

4.5

There were aspects of the book that were harder to follow in the fantasy world (not a fantasy reader). I think she did the beginning of the book well and the second part of the book was good too. The ending is amazing. There is just a small section that I couldn't really imagine well, but I love this series. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death of parent, Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Alcohol, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Blood, Child abuse, Grief, Medical content, Murder, Violence, and War

I thought the first portion of the book was a good transition into Iron Flame. The middle portion was slower, don't get we wrong there are some good sections in there but for me that was the hardest part of the book for me to get through. The ending though. I first off don't think it is quite as a surprise as most, however it is still a good cliff hanger. For me though I have high hopes that everything will work out in the third book and pretty fast too. SPOILER: Theories -I think Violets mom is venin and became venin while she was pregnant with Violet -She stresses the point about doing anything for her kids so maybe she was protecting Brennan or Mira and had to get more power by becoming vernin. -Violet is part vernin because it is passed from bloodlines, meaning her siblings wouldn't be affected by because assuming their father doesn't have it in the blood, their mother wouldn't have had it when she was pregnant with them. -More people are venin than you think, a lot. I think of being venin like a disease. Like cancer infecting tons but affecting the mind with something like dementia but evil. This is just the start of venin spreading. -Xaden's family has always been venin and it can be passed through blood lines. -Violet's dad may not be Violet's biological father.

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Cursing, Drug use, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Blood, Body horror, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Self harm, Alcohol, Bullying, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Medical content, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Body shaming, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Animal death, Death, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Toxic friendship, Vomit, and War

vaguely_pink'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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Fourth Wing was mid at best for me, so color me shocked when I absolutely could not put down this book and realized that this was good.

(It's worth noting at the beginning here that this book needs a heavy trigger warning for torture, so if that's the only part of this review you read ((as if anyone reads my reviews )), I'll be okay.)

A lot of the issues I had with Fourth Wing were nonexistent here. Violet is no longer info dumping all the time. The world has been built in book one (no matter how lazily), so the lore we get here is well crafted and executed. It sort of felt like Fourth Wing was just the book she had to write so Iron Flame made sense.

The character writing is also much improved in book two. Particularly when it comes to Violet and Xaden's relationship. (Although I will never forgive Ms. Yarros for naming him Xaden.) This genre has so many male love interests that are too perfect and exist only to teach the FMC something about herself (Manic Pixie Dream Bat Boys™), but Xaden is flawed as hell. They fight and I can't take anyone's side because they're both wrong and toxic as hell sometimes. They both have major character growth throughout the book, and we love to see it.

The more minor characters are much more enjoyable too. In Fourth Wing I could barely keep everyone straight in my head, so it was hard to appreciate the found family banter. In Iron Flame, it's all there and wonderful. Would die for Ridoc. 

And of course we love to see this kind of disability representation. And not only EDS, but some great PTSD portrayals in there too. As a neurodivergent disabled girlie, there was lots to warm my cold heart. And all the great family drama in there too. Juicy.

This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. While I could predict every single twist to Fourth Wing, I had no idea what was coming next in Iron Flame. I still maintain that the Empyrean series so far is nothing revolutionary. Despite what the blurb on the cover says, this is exactly like every fantasy you've ever read. But damn if this Divergent/Eragon/wizard-books-that-shall-not-be-named mash up isn't fucking fun. Very excited for the next installment.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Death of parent, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Sexual content, and War

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Grief, Ableism, Body horror, Violence, Confinement, Cursing, Gore, Kidnapping, and Xenophobia

Minor: Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Gaslighting, and Animal death

aksmith92's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

1.5

The moment I knew this book would fall completely flat for me was when I read this sentence: "Riders party as hard as we fight. And we fight pretty damned hard."

First, I must admit that I only gave Rebecca Yarros's Fourth Wing, the first in this series, a 3-star review. I did this because (1) there was such a lack of character depth and development, (2) I absolutely hate when most of a romance is about gawking at the main male character for how hot he is, and (3) the plot had some holes. Regardless, I was incredibly intrigued about the Empyrean - the world of the dragons. I thoroughly enjoyed the dragon plot piece in the first book, and it was the only piece I was looking forward to in the second book.

My biggest complaint: instead of getting the intricate and vital plot development and world-building I was itching for, we got more info-dumping and action scenes that didn't help any questions I had. I wanted way more information about the Empyrean, Basgiath War College, and I don't know, the venin/wyvern? But no, we barely scratched the surface. I get that this will be a longer series, but to keep me interested in the world, I needed much more than that. Additionally, the characters still fell entirely flat for me, and Violet seemed to regress in her development. Ugh! What a disappointment!

In my opinion, the first 40-50% of this book was an absolute dumpster fire. Until I got to about 50%, I planned to rate this a 1 star. The plot holes seemed to get bigger, the romance was garbage, and it felt like each character was 18 years old. It read even more YA, and even the dragons were so personified (e.g., a teenage phase, really? Also, Tairn's personality seemed to disappear?); I was ready to DNF. It made the last 50% incredibly hard to read, even if it became more action-packed, and I must admit I started skimming in places. While the action scenes were decently done, the writing was just so cringe at times that I wanted to skip entire sections, particularly Violet's inner monologue (for example, the fact that words were italicized for emphasis in too many places OR when she said she was going to DIE if Xaden wasn't inside of her right now....yikes).

Yes, the ending was better (I also felt this way about the first one). No, it does not warrant a higher review. I found this book to be so formulaic as if it was solely being used to check boxes off for social media. Another thing that didn't cut it for me? Toxic perseverance. I usually can tolerate some of this in fantasy novels - fantasy usually undergoes a war, violence, etc., and requires the main and side characters to be stronger than, I don't know, the reader. Something about perseverance makes us readers sometimes smile - "Ah, I could never do that, but why not have that mentality!" Here, it was an absolute overload - Violet would get over EVERYTHING quickly and loudly. Someone died and Violet was truly like "oh well!." Plus, the book in general was WAY too long - I got to another action scene and was like I don't even care. And, don't even get me started on the whole ex drama nonsense...

As an avid reader of fantasy, this just does not cut it for me - there are SO many other series out there that work beautifully. I'll see if I continue reading this series, but chances are slim at this point.

I tried with all my might to see the hype. I also read Rebecca Yarros's The Things We Leave Unfinished a year-ish ago, which was much more polished, mature, and interesting than this series. I guess it was published before BookTok went viral. Regardless, I am disappointed overall, but content that this series isn't for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Torture, Violence, Sexual content, War, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcohol

keelirae113's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Death of parent, Ableism, Blood, Chronic illness, Gore, Grief, Medical content, War, Murder, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Body horror, Classism, Child death, Colonisation, Medical trauma, Sexual content, and Torture

Moderate: Gaslighting, Alcohol, Xenophobia, Confinement, and Vomit

Minor: Bullying and Kidnapping

silverhill's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Violence, Bullying, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, War, and Torture

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Death of parent, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Animal death, Mental illness, Ableism, Abandonment, Alcohol, Classism, and Misogyny