Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

11 reviews

malreadsthebooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

Masterful writing. Hilarious and truly epic insults. Great storyline with twists and turns and depth and character development. Original and imaginative and dark and tragic and beautiful. Wonderful Witcher vibes. Super gory and graphic, be warned

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Addiction, Animal death, Cursing, Drug abuse, Violence, Alcoholism, Blood, Religious bigotry, Death, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Drug use, and Gore

Moderate: Murder, Child abuse, Slavery, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, and War

Minor: Child death and Suicidal thoughts

garrettcz's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, Death, Suicidal thoughts, War, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Blood, Grief, Murder, Sexual content, Death of parent, Child death, Drug use, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Sexual content, Grief, Addiction, Child death, Gore, Alcohol, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Murder, War, and Slavery

januaryt123's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Outing, Bullying, War, Sexual content, Body horror, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Blood, Torture, Murder, Grief, and Homophobia

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Abandonment

wildflower030's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Misogyny, Gore, Religious bigotry, Torture, Violence, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Abandonment, Homophobia, and Cursing

clairew97's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Child death, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Ableism, Animal death, Addiction, Body horror, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Abandonment, Bullying, Cannibalism, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Torture, Alcoholism, Sexism, Toxic friendship, Violence, and War

anntharai's review

adventurous dark sad slow-paced

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

3.5

The bits I liked I REALLY liked. 
The issues I have with it REALLY irk me. 

The world building is immaculate if a bit on the nose, really vivid writing and visceral descriptions, a great mechanic. Love the use of tattoos and the lore building. Overall I liked the story itself. 

The issues, though? 
I found myself rolling my eyes at a lot of the vulgarity because it was genuinely ludicrous at times. Swearing doesn’t bother me in the slightest but the lengths to which these characters went just to get a “banged your relative” joke in was over the top. 

Everything has a simile. Everything. The doors locked like a secret. The floors cold like the night. The night air cold like knives. Wind like knives. Words like knives. Running frightened like a startled horse in a barn on fire and the devil whipping it all the way. The lips red like red things.

The repetitive phrases (fuck my face, like his lady’s lips the last time he kissed her, better a bastard than a fool) stopped feeling symbolic and started feeling like a crutch about half way through and using the same *twist* mechanic used twice (gender neutral names being the crux of two stories told so closely together) made it feel less polished than it could have been. 

Thanks to various reviews etc I was also expecting a “big thing” to shock me at the end but I kind of felt it was obvious…? 

Anti-climactic, in a word, but I do want to know what happens so it’s not like I hated it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Violence, War, Torture, Suicide, Slavery, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Religious bigotry, Physical abuse, Outing, Murder, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Hate crime, Gore, Excrement, Addiction, Drug use, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Animal death, and Blood

karapillar's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Drug use, Gore, Violence, Stalking, Body horror, Child death, Drug abuse, Grief, Addiction, Animal death, Blood, Cursing, Gun violence, Murder, Religious bigotry, and Torture

Moderate: Excrement, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, War, Kidnapping, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Vomit, and Stalking

Minor: Pregnancy and Rape

charlmax's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Incredible. 

Mind blowing.

A plot that keeps you enthralled from start to finish. 

Characters to love and hate in equal measure. Experiencing all that is life and all that is death.

A dark and dangerous adventure filled with heartache and bated breath.

What more could you desire?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

Moderate: Abandonment

cutewitch's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I feel like this is a bit of a Dead Dove situation for me. The jacket certainly warns you that it’s dark. But I dunno, on the back of the Nevernight trilogy, I guess I just wasn’t expecting it to be so… RELENTLESSLY dark and sad? You kinda feel bad, it’s just one thing after another for this guy. Almost nothing goes right ever for 700 pages. I was also maybe expecting more wit, maybe some levity there… and it’s true, Gabriel is the foul-mouthed asshole father of Mia Corvere’s dreams (nightmares); all of the book’s lightness comes from him being a nasty bastard. I liked the take on vampires, I liked the tri-timeline structure. I enjoyed the story, it was enjoyable and I look forward to the next one, but… idk. I feel like this one won’t really stick with me.

Plus, I don’t get why other reviewers are raving about the worldbuilding? Did they READ Nevernight?? This is pretty basic powered-up-vampires, plus pretty basic pseudo-medieval-renaissancey-Europe, plus Catholicism with a VERY THIN new coat of paint. This is not revolutionary, people.

Sex cw:

is it just me or does Kristoff have a menstruation-cunnilingus kink? I’m not judging, just observing… if I had a nickel for every time he wrote a scene with that very particular phenomenon, i’d have at least two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Gore

Moderate: Abandonment, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Alcoholism, and Drug use

kylahspages's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug use, Gore, Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Abandonment, Physical abuse, Violence, and War