Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

18 reviews

tania_mybookishsecret's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Child abuse, Sexual content, and War

Minor: Death of parent

keen's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Blood, and Violence

Minor: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, and Confinement

oliverreeds's review

adventurous 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? Yes

5.0

absolutely crushed

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Murder, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Violence, War, Confinement, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Torture, Child death, and Gore

queenie_ofthe_void's review

adventurous dark emotional sad 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

3.0

Not sure how I feel about the ending and the pacing. It seemed like this could have been two books, and a lot of side characters fell by the wayside (Chloe, Magnus, Liu, etc). For a final book with a lot of ground to cover, I felt too much time was spent building a relationship between Liesel and El. Not the relationship itself, but that time could've been used to a better purpose. REALLY not happy with how things ended for Orion. His entire arc was learning how to be a 'person' and not 'a hero who kills monsters' but then ended up choosing to spend his life away from loved ones and killing monsters full time. Disappointing tbh.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Classism, Violence, Gore, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Death, Grief, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

ashlikes's review

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Grief, Torture, Violence, and War

Moderate: Infidelity, Pregnancy, Bullying, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Murder, and Sexual content

Minor: Addiction, Colonisation, Confinement, Dementia, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Homophobia, Body shaming, and Fatphobia

greymalkin's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

An incredibly satisfying and pleasing conclusion to the trilogy.   I loved it and immediately started re-reading the series again for reasons mentioned under the spoiler tag.

It is very rare for an author to be able to drop a twist so late in a series and pull it off.  Either the twist is predicated on information that the reader never knew or couldn't possibly know (e.g. That there were two murderers, that one particular song has huge personal meaning for the main character even though it was never mentioned, etc.).  But Naomi Novik did a marvelously satisfying job at it.  As soon as it came up I was like OMG now so many things make sense!!  There were always little moments that felt interesting but not particularly significant, and to have them suddenly all be huge clues as to what was really going on was very very cool.  The twist didn't feel like it came out of nowhere and it didn't make me feel stupid for not noticing all the hints.  I love when I can be delightfully surprised (and horrified because of the actual content of the twist). 

I also really loved that this book focused on El really deepening her friendships and feelings for other people and showing how she could bring together disparate groups even though she's not particularly charismatic or great at social things.  I had liked Liesel from the second book but I really loved her in this one.  And Orion... my heart bled for Orion.   

It took me a while to finish the book because I was deliberately pacing it out, savoring the moments because so many huge things happened all the time it was better to take in the book in sips rather than gulps.  And once I finished it, I immediately started reading the first book again.   Only a few chapters into the first book and I was very pleased to see that yes indeed, there's a huge clue right there right at the start and yet we had no idea what we were looking at so it meant nothing.  Tremendous.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Racism

Minor: Child death

chamaeleontis's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.75

I loved this book. It was a great way to end the series. But I was a little disappointed by the ending (rushed and has a trope I don’t like), or it would have been 5 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Torture, Violence, War, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pregnancy, Body horror, Child abuse, Medical content, Blood, Drug use, Gore, Classism, Confinement, Grief, and Sexual content

Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia

fivecatsinacoat's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring medium-paced

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

4.5

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced review copy.

When I tell you I gasped and had to close my kindle 60% through....

I very much enjoyed this final installment of the Scholomance trilogy. I was concerned the final book wouldn't live up to the others as it's not set in the Scholomance, but it was a fun adventure! The Golden Enclaves was quite different than the prior two, and the world-building wasn't quite as precise, but that didn't distract from my enjoyment of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Classism, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Violence, War, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Bullying