Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

50 reviews

queenie_ofthe_void's review against another edition

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

5aru's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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

What a fulfilling conclusion to the trilogy. I truly appreciated how the gray morality of certain characters was handled, and the twists felt like having the rug pulled out from under me — in a good way. I really admire the world and magic system Novik has built here, and these characters (El, in particular) have made room for themselves in my heart; I was rooting for them all the way through.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Death, Body horror, and Grief

Moderate: Child abuse

kayladaila's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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: Body horror, Torture, Classism, and Murder

Moderate: War, Violence, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Drug use, Sexual content, Child abuse, Child death, Death, and Death of parent

stardust_heidi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

For whatever reason, this book dragged in ways the first two didn't. I had to switch back and forth between audio and kindle multiple times in order to better follow the story. The ending was satisfying, and the plot twists and revelations were mind boggling. I enjoyed those a lot. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Body horror

smithreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Grief, Violence, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Classism, Drug use, Gore, Kidnapping, War, and Sexual content

Moderate: Murder and Death of parent

Minor: Homophobia

gowlstick's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

5.0

I had this on pre-order and was incredibly excited to finally get to it! It wraps up the trilogy in such a satisfying way that I didn't predict. It was exciting to have the characters finally out of the Scholomance and in the real world; there is a lot of cross continental travel. The only thing that really bothered me was how the travel time was handled, lots of the events in the book are high stakes situations for the characters so just having blank bits of travel was a bit jarring sometimes. This also gave a pretty fast paced non-stop feel to their actions at the same time.

I was pretty tickled when I got to the section where we discover that Orion is a mawmouth, I'd pretty much just been describing the series to a friend and said something along the lines of "he's like a human mawmouth" - and I still felt a bit of a surprise when it was officially droppped.

I think it follows the other two books incredibly well. I's very different but they all feel relatively even in terms of quality to me unlike what can happen with other trilogies. I hope that the series becomes bigger in name and carves itself out a spot in newer fantasy must-reads.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Gore

Moderate: Classism, Child death, Death of parent, and Death

Minor: Grief, Colonisation, Confinement, and Alcohol

amphipodgirl's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

5.0

This is a wonderful, fitting end to the series, full of reveals that make you want to go back and reread the previous volumes to see where/whether the groundwork was laid. I've started re-listening to volume 1 and I am certain that Novik had this all planned out meticulously from the get-go. There was one half-chapter in here that I found irritatingly wandery and vague, but I loved everything else about it. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Torture, Physical abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

A secondary character is threatened with severe crushing, of a sort that would not be survivable without magic. She is rescued, but not until she has suffered severe injury. This is done with the knowledge and consent of people who should have a duty of care towards her. Also, we find out where maw-mouths come from and it is absolutely gruesome.

chamaeleontis's review against another edition

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

purplepenning's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Body horror, Grief, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, Death, Violence, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

Minor: Sexual content

dogs_cats_books's review against another edition

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Torture, and Death