Reviews tagging 'Death'

Valiant by Holly Black

12 reviews

sassper17's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Death

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

camiclarkbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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

“Valiant” is the second book in Holly Black’s “Modern Faerie Tales” trilogy and features a different set of main characters than the first book, “Tithe.”

As in the first book, Black weaves a story that balances between showing the wondrous parts of fairyland and the wicked side. She puts her human characters through it, especially the main character Val. 

This book was dark in a different way than “Tithe,” with much of the story centered around the main characters’ abuse of a fictional drug called Nevermore. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Classism, Drug use, Addiction, Blood, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Death, Cursing, and Adult/minor relationship

leahfoko's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I was not a fan of all the drug use in this. I don’t think it was done badly necessarily, I think it portrayed it as dangerous and that is good, but it kinda just made me uncomfortable. Likely because I really, really hate needles.

Also, Dave glamouring himself to look like Luis so he could sleep with Lolli was really rapey to me and made me super uncomfortable. Dave’s character in general made me very uncomfortable. 

So I found both those aspects of this book to make me like it a lot less because it was hard to read. I liked the mystery though, and all the faerie intrigue is always fun to me, I do love Holly Black’s faerie world. I liked Ravus and Val together. I liked seeing Roiben and Kaye at the end. But the drugs and the glamour sex thing was just pretty hard for me to read. So it would be good to know about those parts going into it I think.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Drug use, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Addiction, Rape, and Sexual assault

I am calling the glamoured sex with Dave and Lolli rape/sexual assault because I personally believe that it is. She was agreeing to have sex with Luis, not Dave, and she didn’t know that it wasn’t Luis. Therefore that counts as rape to me. Maybe some people would argue it isn’t, but I argue that it is.

chasesys's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Addiction, and Violence

Moderate: Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Death

Minor: Sexual content, Infidelity, and Kidnapping

epsyphus's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

3.0

I really liked the urban setting, especially for a faerie book. I like the way Val's story connected with Kaye's. I didn't love the prominence of drug use though. I would have liked it more without that. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Drug abuse

Moderate: Body horror

raelinrou's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Sexual content, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Animal cruelty, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Homophobia

bookcaptivated's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Blood, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Infidelity, Murder, Gun violence, Sexual content, and Violence

mollyanne624's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, and Infidelity

Moderate: Animal death

Minor: Grief, Homophobia, Sexism, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

foldsea's review

adventurous challenging dark 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

laequiem's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Vomit, Violence, Self harm, Infidelity, and Death