Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Malice

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Malice by John Gwynne

23 reviews

ashleykhoffman's review against another edition

adventurous tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

3.75

Now this is a war fantasy. Some authors try to write war, but every character comes out relatively unscathed, but this is dark and twisty and heartbreaking. There are a LOT of characters and places, and for a first book in a series, I think a lot of them were unnecessary and just made this slower to get through. I had to take notes to make sure I was even kind of following earlier parts of the book. It does seem like the series will be much easier to follow in subsequent books, but be aware if you're a mood reader that this one takes focus and determination to plow through the world building. But the end is worth it and I'm excited for book 2.

Content Warnings

hails2dabails's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective 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

4.5

Content Warnings

angemelb's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Lots of characters to get your head around from the get go. Coming of age for Corban, young man who is being trained by mystery man. A Prince, Nathair, counsel-Evnis, and others who filed with greed/ambition.... tale of kings being superceded and who shall win in the end? Help from strange places/ people/ creatures.... really enjoyed this first book and ate throug the pages. Can't wait to see what happens next.

Content Warnings

grunks's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

4.5

Content Warnings

xta_07's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

This is John Gwynne’s incredibly ambitions debut novel, and Oh Boy, this story was a doozy. The first half of it did feel a bit disjointed as Gwynne sets up everyone on the board. Plus he doesn’t do any hand-holding of any kind. You are dropped into the middle of a world, and you need to pay attention and strap in. Because once he gets going he doesn’t stop!

Bandits and Mythical creatures have started to awaken and harass our characters that live in the Banished lands. Heralding the prophesied god war. Essentially this will be a battle of good vs evil, and the characters we follow are beginning to choose what side they will end up on.

I actually enjoyed most of the beginning chapters in this book, I found Corban’s chapters almost cozy in a weird way. Plus no-one writes a battle scene quite like this author, once the action starts it doesn’t stop. I highly enjoyed this read, and I’m looking forward to continuing the series.

Content Warnings

surdiablo's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional 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? Yes

2.0

I did not enjoy this one as much as I hoped, which is unfortunate considering the majority of people who participated in a FatF read-along with me seem to have loved it. I couldn't connect with the prose and found the whole book a bit too plain and predictable overall. As usual, I will say what I liked first. I liked the action scenes well enough as it was immersive and easy enough to imagine. Bonding with

animal companions was pretty wholesome and I love Storm.

Regardless of all the cons I will list soon, I enjoyed the overall story for the most part. It's the classic 'good vs evil' with a modern touch and the last quarter, especially the final 10 chapters is excellent, which makes me wanna read the next book soon enough. It's an ambitious attempt and definitely has potential to be something amazing.

As for things I didn't like, sadly there's plenty. The author constantly throws several character and location names at you from the beginning and inserts exposition dumps during conversations, which interfered with my immersion. There were way too many characters ( yes, I know that's normal in epic fantasies ) but none of them had any real depth, and those who did stay within their assigned archetype. They all felt like cardboard cutouts so whenever someone died or some major event happened, it fell flat as they lacked any weight or emotional impact. I know fast pacing can be fun but it felt jarring whenever a timeskip happened, and pacing still felt slow regardless of short chapters, since POVs kept switching one after another, ruining the momentum. Plus, you know there's not enough descriptions when you have no idea how any of the main characters even look ( Unless that's intentional for headcanon purposes). They all kinda sound the same too and I won't be able to tell if you ask me Is it Veradis or Kastell talking? from a dialogue scene without context. I also found the twists and turns highly telegraphed so ultimately, nothing really wowed or left an impression on me until the very end. It felt like the author was trying to make everything sound and feel 'epic', but it just didn't land for me due to the aforementioned issues. I know all of these may sound like minor problems and I would agree, except when combined with me not being able to connect with the writing style, they were detrimental enough to my overall enjoyment. I do get that it's a debut book ( hence it's rough around the edges ) and the remaining books might be better indeed, but I can't say I <b>liked</b> this book at all, so I am going with a 2.

Content Warnings

bebby92's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.5

This is a very slow burn and feels like a set up for the rest of the series but it’s so worth it.

Content Warnings

pandaplantain's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

1.0

All the characters were indistinguishable from each other. They all blended together in a big, beige stew. And there were so many damn many of them. I had such high hopes for this, but I didn’t enjoy it at all.

Content Warnings

erikita's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional slow-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

ripxw's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

More...