Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas

58 reviews

purplexwidow's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

No context favorite moments & thoughts:
-Ruhn MF Danaan. 
-Azriel is a club rat, and maybe a metalhead. 
-Nobody in the NC knows wtf an iphone is. 
-Lidia Servos absolutely serving.
-Ember Quinlan being the mommy we didn’t know we needed. 
-I bet Jesiba Roga makes a mean drink … and she owes me one at this point. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, and War

ashleynp24's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful 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

4.75

Loved the book, I wish the ACOTAR characters had a bit more time in the books but I’m glad that Nesta was the main character in the crossover. I felt that everything kind of got summed up really nicely. Lidia probably turned out to be my favorite character, and the hint she’s related to Brannon, and therefore Aelin was wild. I do want to know what happened with Sathia and where Ariadne was considering she appears at the end and that’s the last of that chapter.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Cannibalism, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Violence, War, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Slavery, Blood, Body horror, Classism, Vomit, Death, Gore, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, and Torture

hematthews's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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? No

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Sexual content, Violence, War, Body horror, Gore, Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, and Torture

Moderate: Hate crime

literary_laur's review against another edition

adventurous 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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Sexual content, Kidnapping, Torture, Blood, Sexism, Violence, Murder, and Death

josxphinchen's review against another edition

dark funny tense slow-paced

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

0.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cursing, Death, Sexism, Torture, Excrement, Misogyny, Body horror, Cannibalism, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual violence, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Gore, Physical abuse, Slavery, Violence, Vomit, and War

jpoe_16's review against another edition

I spent so long reading all the other SJM books only for this one to have me baffled at every turn. SJM switched POV’s so often with a “soap opera” type cliffhanger at the end of each POV. When it comes to the characters, it felt like we needed 2-3 more books of building relationships with them to really care about them. Do not get me started on the joy-sucking and utterly moronic character that is Tharion. 
Maybe one day I will come back to this, but after the reveal of HOSAB, this was such a let down I couldn’t keep going for now. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, Confinement, Colonisation, Death, Sexual content, Vomit, War, and Body horror

melissat's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

Woof. Okay, I've loved SJM for 10 years. But this book was a slog. 

Going from how much I loved Crescent City 1, and how I was starting to get annoyed with Bryce and Hunt in book 2, I thought 3 would have a lot of room for redemption. Instead it was almost 1000 pages of self-flagellation from the male characters, and gaslighting and narcissism from Bryce. Internal and external dialogues, infodumping (but not about anything interesting), and more of Bryce being incessantly full of attitude that really grated on my nerves by about halfway through.

I wish the editors had been allowed to do their jobs and cut so many unnecessary POVs and chapters. The characters all acted in toxic ways under the guise of "doing it for love". Meanwhile, what they were doing was just abuse and control. I essentially hate-read this til the end. 

I really hope that we get better character arcs and plot for the next ACOTAR book, otherwise I'll be so sad!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Torture, Violence, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, and War

Moderate: Toxic relationship and Child abuse

Minor: Addiction

neliadiedenise's review against another edition

adventurous informative 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? No

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Sexism, Torture, Animal death, Blood, Sexual assault, Classism, Vomit, Body horror, Confinement, Kidnapping, Rape, Sexual content, Slavery, Death, Excrement, Gore, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

savshanae's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

I have never been so disappointed by an SJM book and it’s RUINING me. If it was any other author, I probably would have DNF’d this book. So many words for so little to happen, the end left me shaking my head, and don’t even get me started on the lack of character consistency! 
As one of my friends put it, “it feels like she flew too close to the sun” and I wouldn’t be sad to see this book dropped into the ocean forever. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Slavery, Toxic friendship, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Sexism, Vomit, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, War, Classism, Misogyny, Murder, Kidnapping, Gore, Gun violence, Cannibalism, Abandonment, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Torture, and Blood

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, and Bullying

booksalacarte's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

First read- 4.25⭐️ 3🌶️

Adult High Fantasy

Multi POV

Fantasy Romance

Magic

Found family

Journey

Secrets

War

Rebellion

Tech/sci-fi elements

Tw: torture on page, language, 

This was a Crescent City book. It wasn’t an ACOTAR or TOG book. It was crescent city through and through with the quick POV shifts and 

This large cast of characters has always been the messiest. They are completely flawed and full of contradictions and harder to completely stand behind. There wasn’t a lot of self reflection for anyone in the cast. There were a lot of really brash decisions, even from seasoned warriors and politicians, that I rolled my eyes at. There just wasn’t the character growth that I had hoped to see… if anything, some of the characters, a main character even, seemed to get worse… some character growth and revelations that were foreshadowed in the other two books seemed to have been completely tossed out the window. 

The plot was A LOT… and all over the place. There were moments of world-building that was just gigantic info dumps. There were times where we went into sci-fi elements. Many things were concluded and tied up prettily. I’m having a hard time thinking of how this is going to be extended into any more books… 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Murder, Violence, War, Excrement, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Blood, Body horror, Death, Cursing, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexual content, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Vomit