Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

7 reviews

stephaniemcuervo's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Blood, Torture, Slavery, Murder, Gore, Chronic illness, Physical abuse, Cursing, Cannibalism, Xenophobia, War, and Child death

Moderate: Sexual content, Pregnancy, Kidnapping, Vomit, Child abuse, and Death of parent

Minor: Miscarriage, Excrement, and Abortion

catsy2022's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Rating: A

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Blood, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Slavery, War, Murder, Sexism, and Torture

Moderate: Alcoholism, Vomit, and Xenophobia

Minor: Excrement, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

marthadude's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Slavery, Vomit, War, Addiction, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Cannibalism, Child death, Classism, Chronic illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Violence

The book is filled with violence and war. There is some slight lesbophobia at the end,

throughout the book, Queen Terez rebuffs Jezal's advances despite their royal marriage. At first, the implication is that she merely looks down on him due to his status as a bastard. However, it is later revealed that she is in a relationship with her handmaiden/childhood friend. Glotka imprisons her lover and blackmails her into producing 4 heirs for the king before she is released. While I don't think Glotka is a lesbophobic character, this scene is extremely unsettling.

ioana00's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, War, Body horror, Blood, Cannibalism, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Slavery, and Vomit

kylieqrada's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad 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

Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie, say he's one of my new favorite authors!!!! I really was living for the character arcs in this installment. I am still such a Logan Ninefingers stan, though. I love Glokta as much as the next person, but Logan just does it for me, idk. Also THE REVEALS?! C'mon. Nothing less than perfection. And it really couldn't have ended any other way. Stunninggggggg! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, and Torture

Moderate: Body horror, Cursing, and Rape

Minor: Child death, Sexual content, and Slavery

cosmologicaldefect's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

3.75

The conclusion to the trilogy. Most mysteries are revealed. Grand action takes place. Overall I was disappointed how depressing the ending wound up being. Instead of a diverse array of character and plot outcomes, it felt like everything was smashed with a shoe to fit a "grimdark" ending. Abercrombie has a gift was inventing distinct characters, but each character in the main cast (with the exception of a certain wastrel) changes remarkably little over the series. They're more like D&D characters than people which is a shame because they're otherwise expertly crafted. There's a lot of buildup and promise of character development especially in the second book that kind of hits a brick wall in the final entry and retroactively makes the whole trilogy lesser. The series was still very enjoyable to read, but it definitely is missing some things that could have made it truly great.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture and Violence

Moderate: Cursing and Gore

Minor: Slavery

podanotherjessi's review

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I have such complicated feelings about this book and ahve been sitting on rating it for hours because I just don't know how to sum up what I think. Abercrombie continues to struggle with giving his women agency in this book. There were some absolutely horrific moments that elicited the emotions they were surely meant to elicit but I struggle with whether they were necessary or not. But my lord, there is some absolutely FANTASTIC character work in this. But also sometimes I was incredibly bored by the plot.
And since this is the final book in the trilogy, I need to mention that the ending was... well complicated. It had some amazing moments, but it sometimes dragged on and some of it felt very unneeded.

Characters: 9
Plot: 7
Setting: 7
General appeal: 8
Writing style: 8
Originality: 9
Ending: 6

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Cannibalism, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Gore, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Violence