Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas

89 reviews

taryn_g's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, War, Torture, Violence, Blood, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Colonisation, Classism, Slavery, Child death, Cursing, Sexual content, Death of parent, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Kidnapping, Pregnancy, and Child abuse

eyeleash's review

dark emotional medium-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Violence, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Murder, and War

Moderate: Death of parent, Genocide, Gun violence, Physical abuse, and Slavery

Minor: Child abuse

mspencer1998's review

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Violence, Drug use, Grief, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Rape, Sexual content, Slavery, and Torture

iconicavocado's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

(Read via book & audiobook)

Book 📖: 5/5 stars

Audiobook 🎙️: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ugh my heart! ❤️ This is my favorite Crescent City book yet! No stalling, no sub-plots fighting for attention each chapter... It was fast, mind-blowing, and so fun! So much pay off in this book it makes the crawl from Sky and Breath worth it. Future readers: do not rush through this book! Savor it and let it soak in. It's worth it!

What an incredible series by Sarah who really took the bread and butter of her writing and said, "let's push this further." Takes a brave writer to try something different and go even bigger than before. I personally feel she succeeded. I hope she does do one more book to close out this world.

Also shout out to the narrator who has to juggle so many characters and accents in this book for 800 pages. She makes it sound so easy but I'm sure it's taxing. Tbh I think she's a better narrator than the ACOTAR ones (just slightly). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Gun violence, Death, Violence, and Torture

Moderate: Sexual content

tguccione's review

adventurous emotional funny hopeful 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: War, Death, Murder, Gore, Genocide, Body horror, Torture, Blood, Violence, Gun violence, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Slavery, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death of parent and Pregnancy

kittykels's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

"The friends they made were what mattered in the end." Bro, I know she did not just write this into the end of the book. 🤣🤣🤣 

The stakes aren't high if they're fake, that's all I'll say about that.

This book was mostly boring, which is such a shame given how complex the story idea is. The good stuff is drowning in a sea of info-dumping and word vomit, a lot of it repetitive.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Vomit, Torture, Cursing, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Gun violence, and Violence

mads_reads_books's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-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

3.5

I loved a lot of pieces of this book, but as a whole it’s got to be one of my least favorite SJM books. It’s messy and chaotic and there’s just a lot of things that didn’t add anything to the story. I was disappointed by it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Confinement, Body horror, Gore, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Colonisation, Classism, Grief, Murder, Drug use, Misogyny, and Kidnapping

booksofautumn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense slow-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

4.25

First off I am so grateful for StoryGraph, because it is literally the only app that I was able to truly realistically rate this book I adored this book, and the only reason it isn’t five stars is because the conflict sometimes dragged on a little too much for my liking. I was surprised by every plot twist, and every new development. Seeing the character development was honestly so heartwarming and made me so happy. I am truly so happy with the outcome of this novel

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Classism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Sexism, Murder, Racism, Violence, Grief, Infertility, Gun violence, War, Addiction, Gore, Pregnancy, Blood, and Genocide

boba_n_books's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense 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? Yes

4.75

Spice Rating: 🌶️ 🌶️

This book was unexpected in so many ways, and I loved it. 

Searching for clues that tied this world to Maas’ other worlds was the best scavenger hunt. Though I do believe that people should go into this expecting, and knowing, that it is a Crescent City book. 

A lot of people seem disappointed with the lack of ACOTAR characters, but I loved the tie-in. Would I have taken more? Of course! Am I mad about what we got? Not at all. I enjoyed seeing Nesta and Bryce interact, and I can’t wait to see how the events of this book tie into the next ACOTAR book.

It had all my favorite characters and then some. I enjoyed seeing so many different points of view and following multiple side characters, though I do think some POVs were stronger than others. 

The ending blew me away and makes me think the next book(s) will focus on characters other than Bryce and Hunt. I love how well Maas tied this up and am excited to see what happens next. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Murder, Sexual content, Torture, and War

Moderate: Classism, Injury/Injury detail, and Gun violence

Minor: Drug use

allisonamber's review

adventurous challenging medium-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

2.5

Be prepared to be frustrated by a lot of the characters’ choices throughout the entire book. The middle of the book also felt a bit sluggish. 

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD:
1. Bryce and Hunt’s reunion felt extremely lacklustre and anticlimactic 
2. Tharion and Ithan’s POVs are infuriating and I have no idea why SJM made these two make so many dumb decisions repeatedly 
3. Bryce didn’t feel nearly as loveable and she was oddly hard on Hunt which didn’t seem to align with the past two books 
4. The ending felt a little rushed and unbelievable as to how the world would change from it
5. Ithan’s so called character development felt very inauthentic 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, War, and Gun violence

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Death, Blood, Confinement, Cursing, Colonisation, and Kidnapping