Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Lady Smoke by Laura Sebastian

6 reviews

mariyah_reads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-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

4.25

Blaise annoys me. I didn't really like Soren in the first book but I'm actually growing to like the whole dynamic between him and Theo.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, War, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Murder, Classism, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Death, Hate crime, Death of parent, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Confinement, Genocide, Grief, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Racism, Xenophobia, Rape, and Toxic friendship

bookishbutterfly's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? No

3.75

One thing to add : the worldbuilding is much better than in the first book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Colonisation, War, Blood, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Grief

prunechips's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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: Colonisation, Racism, Physical abuse, War, Violence, Murder, and Slavery

Moderate: Death

rinku's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-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

3.5

Just like Ash Princess, Lady Smoke was a slightly above average YA high fantasy novel which is why I gave it 3.5 stars as well. While the world and characters are more explored here and the stakes get higher, the general plot lacks something in comparison to the first novel. 

After the events of the first book, Theo is now on Dragonsbane’s ship with Soren as a prisoner. There, she has to find a way how to defeat the Kaiser and give her country back to her people. This first part of the novel was so slow since the characters spend most of their time only on this one ship. Additionally, they just plan their next steps but don’t act too much. The plan is then that Theo should marry someone so that they have an alliance which was honestly a bit random? For this, they go to the court of king Eristo who acts as a matchmaker and is really sexist, urgh. 

But all in all, this whole thing feels pointless because

none of their plans work since most of their allies get killed and Theo leaves the kingdom without marrying anyone

. It furthermore started to annoy me how they always had to rescue Soren from something. What I liked about this part of the story was the small court intrigue and the plot point around the refugee camp that felt just more meaningful than the rest. Theo also has some character development and realizes that her mother is maybe not like she believed her to be. There are otherwise some epic moments, like

Theo killing Coltania(?) after she tries to poison her

. 

Only when they leave the kingdom, the plot fastens a bit, and they try to find more people to fight the Kaiser which was interesting as well. It was so great to see how

they have a quite big alliance in the end

. Like I’ve said above, the most interesting thing about this novel for me was to see the different countries that felt quite real, and the political conflicts between them. While the ending was dramatic, it was quite anticlimactic

how Cress kills the Kaiser out of the blue. This was just a bit unsatisfying, and he felt like a more realistic villain to me than Cress who feels often just comical

. 

What I also appreciate about Lady Smoke is that there are quite a lot of interesting female characters. I don’t have anything to say about Theo; she’s a good protagonist. When looking at the love triangle, I have to say that I don’t care for Blaise at all. He annoys me with always wanting to sacrifice himself and thinking that he has to protect Theo. Honestly, it seems to me that Theo kinda manipulates him since I don’t have the feeling that she actually likes him romantically. I prefer Soren over him since he doesn’t think that he needs to protect Theo and respects her more in my opinion. His relationship with Theo is also way more interesting. 

Lady Smoke ends again with an amazingly dramatic ending which is a big contrast compared to the rather boring rest of the book. With that, there’s only one book left until Theo (hopefully) gets her throne back. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, War, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Colonisation and Death of parent

Minor: Child abuse and Kidnapping

tiana_king's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Mental illness, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Moderate: Genocide, Slavery, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Rape

kassidyreads's review

dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Racism, Slavery, Death, and War

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Rape