Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

81 reviews

sophie221010's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

Favourite book of all time. Have read it twice now and it just keeps getting better. Funny, devastating and hopeful. Perfect read for anyone looking for a delicious read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Death of parent, Body horror, War, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Violence, and Vomit

chanlo1994's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

This book differs, in a good way, from its predecessor by focusing its conflict more on the supernatural elements than the political ones. It still felt like the same.universe but we got to see so much more that was left to be discovered from the first book. I enjoyed it very much. I'd love to see a book detailing the original Dreadmount eruption and the Snow Maiden

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, War, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Violence, Sexism, Classism, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, Gore, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Infidelity

Minor: Cancer, Death of parent, and Adult/minor relationship

lemonyanne's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

SUCH a good prequel to Priory of the Orange Tree!! So obsessed with this and could see it all so perfectly and cinematically. Somehow even better than POTOT and that’s saying something! Queer characters, POC rep and incredible fantasy plot ❤️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Pregnancy

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, War, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Death, and Violence

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

mice_are_nice's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, War, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, and Kidnapping

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Animal cruelty, and Adult/minor relationship

lmfry's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, War, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Infidelity, Death of parent, Classism, Animal death, and Mental illness

Minor: Alcohol

readandfindout's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

4.0

Style/writing: 4 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Plot: 3.5 stars stars
Worldbuilding: 4 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Child death, Infidelity, Violence, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, War, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Murder

Moderate: Religious bigotry and Animal death

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, and Cannibalism

shottel's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.75

A Day of Fallen Night is an improvement over The Priory of the Orange Tree in nearly every way. It would take a long time to enumerate all the positive changes, but a few in short: The pacing is better, the diversity is better, the appeal to modern audiences is better, the feminist themes are clearer, and even the cover art is better! Priory's Eastern branch lagged, but the branches are deftly balanced in Fallen Night. The book remediates Priory's odd penchant for mostly only mentioning the skin type of white characters, and features a significant number of LGBT+ (every letter of the acronym! and then some!) main and secondary characters. It draws on contemporary writing trends from other adult-genre books and, seemingly, fanfiction ("It's too cold, we have to cuddle for warmth") to excellent effect. And women's issues, most notably issues of pregnancy and birth, feature far more prominently, with the noble requirement to sustain a bloodline playing a role throughout the book.

This mandate to procreate establishes this book as far more clearly feminist (the idea that women have issues, interests, and stories worth hearing as much as men do) than its sequel. The need for nobility to sustain itself through childbirth is a recurring, central issue of the book, among other issues which concern women more than they do men, which also make frequent appearances.

In some ways, this book feels like it was written to an audience that might be into medieval court drama or epic adventures, but aren't too fond of the biases that pervade those genres. It is a grand epic, fantastically wrote, including women, LGBT+ characters, and people of color as equals to men, cishet, and white characters.

There are only a few places where it falters. The biggest problem I had is that the action scenes are confusing. I found myself frequently struggling to imagine the scene, re-reading portions over and over again. At first I thought it was a me issue, but after a half-dozen or so times, I figured it's probably not a me problem.

Additionally, I flagged two more minor concerns. First, with the presence of so many LGBT+ characters, the lack of transfeminine characters stands out oddly. Perhaps one or both of the nonbinary characters in the book are intended to be transfeminine, but there is no way to know this from the text. I don't make any guesses as to why; it just sits weirdly. Secondly, while *Priory* is a truly self-contained work, *Fallen Night* hints at an intention to write another book set between the two. This is the only change which I find to be a step backwards from *Priory*.

When layered inside an over 800 page grand adventure, these issues are minor, thus my score of 4.75/5. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in grand adventures, feminist fiction, fantasy, or fiction with LGBT+ main characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Sexism, Blood, Death, Violence, Grief, War, Terminal illness, Misogyny, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Kidnapping, Child death, Infertility, Body horror, Gore, Emotional abuse, Torture, Miscarriage, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Cannibalism, Abortion, and Animal cruelty

krisawesome's review against another edition

3.5

I liked the world building better in this prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree, and I thought the multiple storylines were better balanced here too. Although some of those storylines proved to be more emotional for postpartum me than I had anticipated… I’d actually started reading this book while I was still pregnant but wow was I not prepared for the extra feelings I’d have as a new mom about some of the themes.

Pacing is still kind of all over the place though, with the first part being too slow and the ending too fast.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: War, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Pregnancy

phantom_tribble's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective slow-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

4.5

Even though I really liked Priory of the Orange Tree, I think I liked Day of Fallen Night even more. Be forewarned though- similarly to Priory the plot takes a bit to pick up at the beginning and the worldbuilding is quite complex. Even though it's set before Priory there were a few things in the beginning that assume you already know a little bit about the world. You could definitely read it without having read Priory but be prepared to just go with the flow a bit at the beginning (or have a friend who knows what's up to ask for context). It is very character and setting driven which I loved. That's not to say it lacked plot (it's a big book there's room for both). All in all a lovely high fantasy read and one I will be returning to in the future for sure!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, War, and Pregnancy

savirisu's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark inspiring 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and War

Moderate: Death