Reviews with content warning for Torture - Before They Are Hanged

Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

45 reviews

marthadude's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.25

This is a great second entry in this trilogy. It builds on the foundations of the first novel and leaves a lot of interesting loose ends for the next book to hopefully wrap up. Abercrombie’s character work is fantastic. I do have a gripe with the way the female characters are written. Only one of them feels fleshed out and the rest seem more like objects for the male characters to gain more characterization. I wish they just had more to do.

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nightcatcat's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

5.0

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btrz7's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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coulro's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny 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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kylieqrada's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I am so bad at rating books because it is legit allllllll vibes. The further I get into a series and the more invested I get, for the most part, my rating goes up. And there wasn't much room to improve here from The Blade Itself's 4.5 ⭐s! We were definitely moving and grooving more in this one (in some cases literally - ew Joe don't write sex scenes) and I am READY for book threeeeeeeee.

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sleepy_yoshi's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

My main complaint with the last book was that there was essentially no plot what so ever. In this book that's changed, however if I could sum it up in one word that word would be meandering. It's just incredibly slow moving and it feels like only a couple things of any real significance happen plot wise. Also there are what feel like weird time skips to me. The characters will be doing something at the end of the chapter and when it gets back to their POV whatever they had been doing is completed.

You expect this in epic journey's of course, because you don't want to read an inch by inch play by play. However, in this case sometimes it skips things that would seem to be things of great tension rather than mundane journeying. Just something I found off putting.

The small events that do occur though continue to drive the characters forward. Some of them get a good amount of development this go around, albeit some arguably too abruptly. Overall though the character writing is still magnificent, to the extent Glokta in particular, is currently one of my favourite characters in all of Grimdark Fantasy and high up there in Fantasy as a whole. That's not a slight on the rest of the characters though as the one's I love and hate (for all the right reasons) are numerous.

I found myself laughing when they're sarcastic or witty, scowling when they do something objectionable, smirking when one of them gets what I think they deserve and a wide variety of other emotions and reactions. The last book was a 4.25 and while not perfect, I do think the improvements were enough to warrant a 5 here.

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redwavereads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-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? Yes

4.5

What a sequel.
The character work continues. I am very much invested in every one of them.
It’s brutal and bloody and I like it.
Book one was the setting of the pieces, and book two is the middle game - it’s not clear who will win and the first hard hitting losses were endured.
Book one was barely any greater world building, only hints, and book two is starting to dive into politics and magic.
I’m very excited for book 3.

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