Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Le maree nere del cielo by Neon Yang

11 reviews

fareehareads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective

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

4.5

This story follows twin children named Mokoya and Akeha who live in the Grand Monastery and grew up in an environment that left both of them isolated and mainly dependent on one another. They are able to communicate through a system called slackcraft where they hear each other's thoughts and at times feel each other's pain. As kids, neither of them are gendered and are referred to by they/them pronouns until the kids themselves decide on a gender and have a confirmation ceremony. A point of contention arrises between the siblings when Akeha decides to be confirmed as a girl and it drives a rift between her and her twin. In the Tensorate universe, prophecies are not taken lightly so when Akeha develops the skill for seeing prophecies, the pair attempt to band together and change the outcome, to no avail. When a third comes into their lives, Thennjay, it makes an even bigger rift between them and Mokoya gets confirmed as a boy, the first son of the Protectorate (a monarch figure and their mother) in many years.  The next half of the book follows Mokoya who flees from the monastic lifestyle and from his sister to find a path for himself and oppose a mother that is opressing a kingdom and the twins. I really enjoyed the twin dynamic in this book and the fluidity of gender and how it worked in this silkpunk universe. I can't wait to start on the rest of the series. Neon Yang has definitely become one of my favorite authors in fantasy. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Gore and Murder

lilmor's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

4.75

Couldn’t put it down. Yang writes with a deftness that reads so fluidly and leaves a reader clamoring for more without being sparse. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Gore, Death, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, and Grief

kylieqrada's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.5

4.5 ⭐️s. This one took a sec to get into, just because the writing is so next level. But once I got on a roll with it, it really shone. Gorgeous world-building, amazing characters, interesting gender dynamics. I felt like the pacing was spot on with this one as well. Will definitely be picking up the next one. 


Read for Beautifully Bookish Bethany's Tordotcomathon 2022

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Gore, and Murder

Minor: Pregnancy, Animal death, and Fire/Fire injury

adoto's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

I loved the world and lore in this book but I felt like I read a prologue rather than a complete story and had no opportunity to get invested. I wish I liked this enough to seek out the second book. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Xenophobia, Death, Gore, Child death, and Blood

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Injury/Injury detail

The book itself is not xenophobic, but there are clear real-world xenophobic parallels that I feel are worth mentioning, especially if you are South Asian or Middle-Eastern (I'm Indian myself). The book's treatment of these characters and these issues is absolutely fine. I had no problems reading it; just putting it out there in case someone might. The blood and gore mentions are very brief, contained within a few sentences, but occur multiple times during the book and are described graphically. Blood/gore invoke physical reactions in me and I was definitely affected by those parts in this book so be warned!

ailsaod's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

3.0

Not sure what to think about this book. It is very short but despite this it took me ages to read because there is just too much happening?? We never get a solid feel for who our characters are because they are aging so quickly. I spent half of the book thinking that with each new timeskip would be the actual beginning of the story and the prior chapters were just context but it just never stopped. I have no idea who any one the main characters are or their motivations and the romantic relationships were very much insta-love. Is this book about being taken for granted? Is it about having to find your own way? Is it about fate? Evil dictators? I have no idea. For 150 pages things just sort of happened and the most frustrating part is is that the author was clearly saying something here!

The same goes for the worldbuilding. The stuff with slackcraft is never explained - though admittedly I would say this aspect of the book suffers the least from this treatment - and the treatment of gender was interesting but was overshadowed by everything else to the point that I just wanted to know more.

I probably won't be continuing with this series as I found it frustrating and unsatisfying. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Violence, Toxic relationship, Racism, and Child death

Toxic relationship is between the main characters and their mother

cemeterygay's review against another edition

fast-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? Yes

5.0

I adored this book but the best part of the book by far is the worldbuilding.

Yang managed to build a very intriguing world that is very different from the fantasy worlds we typically see in a lot of mainstream fantasy. I love the way Yang explores and integrates gender into the world and how they manage to blend so many different cultural elements together seamlessly. I just wish we had more time to explore the magic system and to learn way more about the training. 

I did really enjoy Mokoya and Akeha's relationship as siblings, I just wish we got more time between the two of them, especially with Mokoya. I do think the author does an amazing job at quickly establishing the personalities of each character, even though not all of the established characters are that multi-dimensional. What other characters lack though Akeha, especially, and Mokoya more than make up for. 

I think my biggest problem was that I just wanted more of the book. While I do believe that Yang did an amazing job with the space they had, I just wish the time jumps weren't as sudden or extreme.

Beyond that I absolutely adored this book and would absolutely recommend it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Emotional abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Blood, Gore, and War

lucystolethesky's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Violence, Murder, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Death, Child death, and Child abuse

Moderate: Confinement, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Xenophobia

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Adult/minor relationship

therainbowshelf's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

3.0

When I was a teen, I fell in love with Octavia Butler's Imago. I loved that some children in that world were born genderless and later chose their genders. I enjoyed finding that again in this world, as well as a combination of magic and science. Overall, I was not captured by this book. I felt like I missed important parts of the story that connected earlier events to later ones, and earlier emotions to later ones. It is entirely possible that I did miss them, of course. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Genocide, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture

catsy2022's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, and Death

Minor: Child death and Child abuse

bi_blue's review against another edition

fast-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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Gore, and Murder