Reviews tagging 'Child death'

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

51 reviews

kiwij96's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

The emotional whiplash that this book has left me with is astounding. Leigh Bardugo has perfectly crafted the Grishaverse and has perfectly tied in character history with the other books in the series. This one broke my heart and gave me hope for future books in the best way. 

This book follows Nikolai, Zoya and Nina and takes place 3 years after the Shadow and Bone trilogy, and a year after the Six of Crows duology. All three of these characters are aome of my absolut  favourites from this series.

As someone who loved Zoya from book one of Shadow and Bone, rightly or wrongly, this was more her book than Nikolai's story. This gave her already tenacious character a brutal backstory and an awe-inspiring yet tragic redemption. This gives us understanding of who she is and why. I am honestly in love with her.

This book, from the Triumvirate's perspective, and Zoya and Nikolai's perspectives turned the whole Grishaverse on its head and the second that happened I was lost in the story in the best way possible.

Nina's character has always been a law unto herself, but her story in this felt disconnected from the rest of it. I feel Nina, Adrik and Leoni could have done with their own spin-off really however I did love learning more about their characters and recognising the references to previous books.

However, I am very confused as to what happened with the men from the very start of the story. Maybe I misread that bit but the whole time I was asking where they went and if they ever made it to Ravka.

That ending honestly has me in a spin, what an absolutely genius yet evil way to end a book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug use, Grief, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, War, Miscarriage, and Murder

Minor: Body horror

fantasycat's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Grief, Death, and Confinement

Moderate: Addiction, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Minor: War, Miscarriage, Vomit, and Child death

danicakvcs's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Addiction, Murder, Slavery, and Blood

Moderate: Grief, Pregnancy, and Child death

Minor: Suicide attempt and Fire/Fire injury

aamina's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Child death, Pregnancy, Grief, Drug use, Child abuse, and Murder

Minor: Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, Genocide, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Medical content, and Child death

serendipity421's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Blood, Pregnancy, Addiction, Drug use, Murder, Violence, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Misogyny

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

shelvesofivy's review against another edition

dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Grief, Death, Murder, Violence, and Body horror

Moderate: Addiction

Minor: Pregnancy, Animal death, Child death, Miscarriage, Medical content, War, and Pedophilia

onefineelephant's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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

4.5

9/10. I loved this book. I don't think I liked it more than the Six of Crows books, but that's because I'm a sucker for found family. I love Nikolai, Zoya, Nina, and Hanne. The only part that I didn't like was that it felt like I was reading two separate books - one about Nikolai and Zoya and another about Nina and Hanne. It didn't feel like the two connected or overlapped very much, so when I would read a chapter from one of their POVs, then I wanted to keep reading that story rather than switching to a completely different story (that I also liked and then the cycle would continue). I'm guessing the two stories will converge in the next book, but I think this book felt off because of the unrelated stories. Love the Grishaverse, though. This series continues to surprise me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Trafficking, Violence, Blood, Drug use, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Murder, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, and Sexism

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Child death, Rape, Police brutality, Pedophilia, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and War

prettynerdy3's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Grief, Trafficking, Violence, War, and Child death

Moderate: Medical trauma, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual harassment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Violence, Addiction, Child abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Slavery, and War

peggy_racham's review against another edition

5.0

Unlike the other grishaverse books, which were of course well written, exciting, full of adventure, this book is cozy. Its not lacking in exciting, adventure filled plot, but is ,in the end, friendly. Everybody is a little older, more mature and just a little settled. Loved every second

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal death, Murder, Toxic friendship, and War

Minor: Child death, Confinement, Physical abuse, and Animal death

trintrin's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.25

I'm so confused? It got me hooked right from the beginning which definitely says something because not even Six of Crows managed to do that and it's one of my all time favs. I'm aware it's because I already know and love these characters but-

THE CHARACTERS!!!
Man I was already in love with Nikolai and Zoya and this is not helping!! Nikolai was the sole reason I picked up this book, and I enjoyed every bit of him. I did not expect to love Zoya's POVs but girl snatched my wig fr. I would die for these two at any given time istg. Isaak, you sweetheart, you stole my heart, and so did Hanne. And Nina, of course, I was beginning to worry she didn't contribute as much as she did in SoC, but she pulled through towards the very end. One more thing, I wanted to see Nikolai doing more king-y stuff. I wanted to see him in court. I wanted to see him rule. I wanted to see more of Sturmhond, more of the too-clever-fox, more of him charming people and just doing the Nikolai thing. By the looks of it, it will get more political in Rule of Wolves and I can't wait for that!

I have a love/hate relationship with the multiple callbacks to the previous books. Like yes I was nearly squirming with joy and even in tears at one point every time a throwaway reference to Kaz or Jesper or Alina were made but also they felt a little too much- a little overdone at times. They almost got me wanting to go back to those old characters instead of going forwards with the story, but the character dynamics were god tier so I'll ignore this one.

The plot
I was very surprised when I realised the first 2/3rd - aka the sloooow part where pretty much nothing happens - was actually my favourite. Felt like that's where the characters shined the most. And then after that it was just uhhhh???

I wasn't really vibing with the whole Saints in the Fold thing but yay go Zoya the dragon ig? And I'm absolutely 1000% not a fan of reviving the Darkling or the monster inside Nikolai for that matter at all. Reviving characters in general tends to feel very cheap. Reviving villains who were firmly put to an end is on a whole other level of cheapness and I absolutely cannot handle that. Nina's plot line, which was my least favourite in the first half, was my most favourite in the end. I wanna see more of whatever drugs the Fjerdans cooked up and more of Hanne as well.

It did get super interesting in the last like 5 pages and I'm excited to see how that plot will be continued in RoW. Fingers-crossed it's better than this one. 

So yeah an exciting-but-confusing-but-still-got-you-wanting-the-sequel read

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Grief, Pregnancy, Addiction, Drug abuse, Blood, Death, and Drug use

Moderate: Animal death, Religious bigotry, Murder, and War

Minor: Child death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Vomit, and Sexism