Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen

7 reviews

aformeracceleratedreader's review

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

4.0

I thoroughly enjoyed this and will be reading the sequel right after. I thought the characters were interesting, the magic is interesting, and the love storyline wasn't terrible.

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sleeping_roses's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny 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

The perfect combination of plot- and charachter-driven development! I love this the way I love Six of Crows.

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lanid's review against another edition

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adventurous dark
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No

2.75


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egurgens's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny informative mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

A wonderful mix of magic, political plots, a persecuted community, LGBTQ+ characters, a runaway prince, and so much more. This story definitely follows the 'enemies-to-lovers' trope, but less severe. More of a 'dislike-to-lovers'. We follow Fie, a Crow chief-in-training, as her troupe of crows collect and dispose of dead plague victims. However, Fie gets the scare of a lifetime when the corpses sit up, the royal prince and his body-double having faked their deaths to escape from the queen who wants them dead. The crows agree to make sure they reach their allies safely, as long as the prince agrees to make sure future crows are protected from persecution in the future. 

When thinking of the crows and how they are treated, I think of pre-Civil Rights America. The crows are openly disliked and mistreated by villagers, the Hawks (think police) attack and treat them roughly for existing, and there is a band of citizens that attack Crow troupes at night, similar to how I imagine the KKK did. Disclaimer:  I'm just using it as an analogy to describe the conditions the Crows faced, not comparing the two situations in any way. 

When the Crows and the two lordlings are betrayed, only Fie and the two lordlings manage to escape capture by the Queen's people. Fie takes up responsibility to get Prince Jasimer to the Commander of their army, his Aunt. What follows is a journey across the continent, chased by magical trackers and mystery monsters. The lordlings get to know the trials that the Crow people face, and Fie gets to know the boys and how they bear their responsibilities. There's a little romancing, some feelings, very nice. 

All in all, I loved this book, and I'm excited to read the sequel. 

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barry_benson's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced
  • 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? Yes

3.75

All I can say is that this is not, in anyway, light reading. This book deals with a lot of racism and misogyny. 

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abbyschalupa's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • 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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micheala's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful 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? Yes

5.0

This is one of those books that I bought as soon as it came out (back in July of 2019) and never picked up. I bought it during the time that I was starting to no longer enjoy YA because I was consistently picking ones that I didn't like the tropes and thought that the main characters were all too stupid to live. 

The main character Fie is part of the Crow caste, the only people who can't get the Sinner Plague and thus are the ones that deal with Mercy Killing those dying of it and burning the bodies so that the entire town doesn't become infected and die. Was it a questionable choice to pick this up now, having just passed a year into this pandemic? Maybe, but I really liked it so it's fine.

Looking at it as it's list of plot events, this is a fairly standard YA fantasy. However, it doesn't read that way. The first thing that made me think that this was going to land better for me was that the reason that the 16 year old girl was the one in charge was not because there were no adults/all the adults were useless/evil. 

If you view the romance that develops based on the amount of time that the characters know each other it could be called instalove, however it didn't feel like that while I was reading it so it didn't bother me. Also, no love triangles!

I really liked how it ended, in that I'm definitely excited for the sequel but if your the kind of person who likes an open ending you could read this as a standalone. 

I'm practicing being less stingy with my ratings this yer, and honestly I don't have any complaints about this book, so even though I'm not sure I would call it an all time favourite, it's still going to get 5 stars.

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