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undecidedpersonality's review against another edition
- 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
3.75
Graphic: War, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Classism, Gore, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, and Vomit
Minor: Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Animal death, Medical content, and Sexual harassment
mckiheather's review against another edition
- 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
Moderate: Grief, Death, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Gore, Misogyny, Alcohol, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Rape, Sexual content, and Suicide
emilywemily6's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Religious bigotry, Violence, Murder, War, and Body horror
Moderate: Sexual content, Racism, Medical content, and Alcohol
Minor: Animal cruelty, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Torture, Child abuse, Drug use, and Fire/Fire injury
bubbly_lara's review against another edition
- 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
"What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men."
For a moment there, I thought my little heart could not take how the story was unfolding. In what the Darkling decided on as a punishment for
Please do yourself a favour and go read this series. It deserves all the hype it's getting. I cannot wait to go dive back into the Grishaverse with "Six of Crows" next.
Graphic: Murder, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Cursing, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, and War
Moderate: Suicide, Child death, Sexual assault, Animal death, Rape, Sexual violence, and Vomit
toastyghosty13's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
One thing that bothered me was that
Something that really bothered me that stems from this is that when Alina killed Mal to try to use him as the last amplifier as a last resort, she lost all of her power and it was reflected in all of the other normal citizens instead. I found this very cheesy and a weird way to take it. I doubt I am the only one that wanted to see Alina go super saiyan on the darkling in some massive showdown, so this was a huge letdown to me.
I did not realize how many people would die off, nor did I realize that they had even died until spoken about in past tense.
The end bothered me unbelievably.
The afterward I actually quite liked. It was quaint, and pretty wholesome. I enjoy that
I have heard that the other duologies are a lot better than this. I am pretty disappointed with the turn this series took after how much I enjoyed the first book. I have the boxset so I will at least be reading The Six of Crows Duology since I already own it. I would not purchase King of Scars unless Six of Crows makes a huge turnaround of what Shadow and Bone left me feeling.
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Torture, War, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Child abuse, and Suicidal thoughts
hayleythegoose's review against another edition
- 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
4.75
Graphic: Blood, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, War, Grief, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Rape
Minor: Suicide attempt and Cannibalism
casdelvo's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Death
Moderate: Body horror, War, and Confinement
Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief
talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
1.25
Graphic: Murder, Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, War, Gore, Body horror, Gun violence, Grief, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, Body shaming, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Child death, Drug use, and Torture
Minor: Slavery, Rape, Sexual assault, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Vomit, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Sexism, Infidelity, Alcohol, Incest, Cannibalism, and Sexual content
zaynascz's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
I think Bardugo perfectly balanced the morals of the characters and the idea that the more power Alina had, the more blurry her morals became.
For example, in book 1 (shadow and bone) we’re introduced to Alina, the main character, and her best friend mal. Alina works as a cartographer for the first army and mal is a talented tracker. After the incident in the fold Alina is found to be a very powerful type of Grisha called the sun summoner. Throughout the book we see Alina wishing her power away just to be back with mal in the first army again; and when the darkling, Alinas only match and the leader of the second army, is looking for something to amplify Alinas power, she ends up agreeing to it. She soon finds out that the darkling is doing it for the wrong reasons and runs away. Eventually she finds the stag from the help of mal but hesitates to kill it, from this we can see Alina has a strong moral compass at this point in the trilogy.
However, this heavily contrasts the end of book three when she finds out mal, her boyfriend at this point, is the third amplifier. Without much hesitation at all, certainly not as much hesitation as she had with Morozova’s stag, she puts a knife through him. She didn’t want to do it but eventually her greed for power took over, as we can see from the quote
“I would never know if it was greed or selfishness that moved my hand”.
We can also see that Alina is slowly turning into the darkling throughout the entirety of the trilogy, and if she would’ve kept the power of all three amplifiers and lived eternally, she definitely would’ve.
Another thing i loved about this trilogy is the way Bardugo portrayed the darkling, a morally grey character who’s heart is in the right place, but goes about it the wrong way. For example, throughout the series we start to see the reasons for why the darkling has done what he’s done, like taking control of Alina through the stags collar in order to enter and control the fold. At first, we’re completely against the darkling and what he’s doing but as the trilogy unravels we start to discover more and more of the Darkling’s character and with that, his reasons. It all started out as building a safe place for Grisha to live in peace, without the fear of others ; but then he got greedy. He started wanting more for Ravka, but he went about it the complete wrong way. He tried to invoke fear, and in that he did, but it only hurt Ravka in the end. His greed and hunger for power kept growing and although i will say he lost sight of his morals centuries ago, i wont say that he lost track of his end goal completely. He wanted a safe place for Ravka, and he wanted to do it using the fold. Right reason, terrible execution. I completely believe that if Alina would’ve lived as Long as Aleksander, she would’ve been just as bad, if not worse. Without her friends to ground her, especially Mal, Nikolai and Genya, she Would’ve lost track already.
Anyway Stan Nikolai he’s the loml 🤭🤭 and this book was so sad oml
Graphic: Child death, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Gore, Grief, Murder, Death, and Death of parent
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Suicide attempt, and Suicide
sea_sea's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
I think the trilogy improved with each book.
Graphic: Grief, Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Violence, and War
Minor: Death of parent, Stalking, Alcohol, and Fire/Fire injury