Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - The Prison Healer

Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni

74 reviews

epellicci's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.0

This book somehow felt both slow and rushed. While I expected it to be uncomfortable, with most of the book taking place within an unregulated prison environment, the brutality felt poorly fleshed out. There is constant reference to physical, sexual and mental abuse suffered by the prisoners at the hands of the guards, but it never goes anywhere. Kiva’s internal monologue often refers to how at any time there are people who can take advantage of her, and yet it felt shallow and unbelievable.

While the aim it to increase the drama of the big reveal at the end, I found Kiva hard to root for when her motivations seemed so all over the place. She takes on the horrific ordeal of the Rebel Queen’s sentence and punishment, yet maintains throughout that she is only mildly sympathetic to the rebel’s cause – instead driven by her oath as a healer. When in the very last pages, it was revealed that there was much more to it than that, I found it hard to believe that the cool, manipulative Kiva who had just been revealed was the same person as the hopelessly naive one who still believed after a decade that her family were on the way to recuse her, and who broke all her rules about forming relationships because Jaren had a pretty face.

Unfortunately, I can see fairly obviously where the next two books are going, and am not invested enough in the characters to watch it play out. Despite this being a pretty quick, easy read, that ultimately did no harm, it reminds me of all the things I didn’t like about ACOTR, and so I won’t be bothering with the rest of it.

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helliepad's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

There was a point in the middle of this that I just wanted to put the book down bc it started getting miserable and I totally forgot this had magic halfway through. I love the story and even though I suspected that Kiva was

from the Corentine line

from the start, the emotional impact of

her mother the Rebel Queen DYING under her care

was insane to me and it still hit. Two more books is too long for me though idk if I'll finish the series. Though the story is really good and I love

secret identity

stories so that was nice.

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guessgreenleaf's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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marenm's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-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? It's complicated

4.5

those plot twists were actually insane. i never knew what was happening. i’d recommend this book sorely off of how cool the premise was, but it’s such a fun read. 4.5/5!

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jessieslibrary's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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delandjessica's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I both loved and didn't love this book. I loved the idea of having this character, Kiva, be the healer in this horrible prison and the focus on her doing her best to take care of the other prisoners. I especially liked the detective element as she's trying to figure out where a mystery illness is coming from. But I didn't feel like the main element of the plot, the Trial by Ordeal, was really even necessary. Not once did Kiva manage to accomplish anything in the trials on her own, being saved by others every single time, and it honestly just felt super gimmicky anyway, used as a flashy lure in the book blurb to get readers to pick up the book. It makes no sense that a prison would go through the effort of putting on such a pointless and time wasting performance just to kill a prisoner, since that's the whole point of the trials is for the person to die spectacularly, especially when there's already the Abyss where problematic prisoners are sent to but never return from. It all just smelled like plot convenience to me and could have easily been written out of the book, which would have made both the plot and Kiva's character stronger.

I also had a huge problem with Jaren. He starts hitting on Kiva from the moment he sees her, continues to pursue her romantically and touches her constantly despite her repeatedly telling him to stop, and he has no real personality other than being attractive and good. I'm not sure how that's supposed to be interpreted as being romantic. I also struggled with Tipp. His character was sweet, but though I appreciate that the author wanted to introduce more character diversity, Tipp's extreme stutter really slows down the reading experience. The author could have reduced the stutter by at least two thirds per dialogue exchange and it would have conveyed the same idea without making it so difficult to get through. The stutter also didn't add anything to Tipp's character that wasn't already there, so I would have liked to see the author either give a purpose for the stutter or remove it entirely.

However, despite all the overexplanation and insufficient description and Kiva's wishy-washy grasp of who she herself even is (she's always saying that she never or always does things and has for the last ten years, but then turns around and is doing or not doing them anyway), I absolutely loved the whole ending and the twist at the very end. It was unexpected but suddenly made the entire book make so much more sense in hindsight. Twist endings are so difficult to pull off, but this one was handled perfectly and I'm eager to see what happens with Kiva next.

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r1vana's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

What is that ending!! I am speechless. I got goosebumps. For all the books I’ve read, that cliffhanger was probably one of the top ten unexpected plot twist!!

she is the princess and the daughter of the rebel Tilda!!!

More RTC

“Enemies to lovers”
Hidden identity
Magic world building 👍🏾

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jennfs10's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

It was a slow start for me and while I liked Kiva’s character, I wasn’t immediately engaged. I kept hearing that the plot twist was the best part. I think that was the biggest reason why I I kept reading at a steady pace and this was a Reading Society book club read for March. I will admit, by the end I thought it’d end as a typical YA fantasy HEA but the plot twist completely turned it into an unexpected but much more interesting character arc for Kiva. I’ve already started the second book!

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lightn1ngb0lt's review against another edition

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adventurous dark inspiring 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? It's complicated

4.0

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dwinn5's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

PLOT TWIST!!
No (unmarked) spoilers, but I almost can’t believe I didn’t see some of the stuff in this book coming. The beginning hooked me so well that I could barely put it down; the characters and world are easy to get invested in quickly. The middle got a little slow for my taste for a while there, but it picked back up toward the end and then shocked me so much that I put the book down and stared at the ceiling for a little while. The plot twists and some of the world-building stuff made me feel a way that I haven’t since the 2010s dystopia days, which I loved.

I do agree with some people about the ending- the plot twist was so insane because it felt very out of character and not entirely true to the rest of the story. It was a masterful build up in some ways, and you could see certain pieces fall into place, but I think even some tiny, internal hints that she had a more personal connection to Tilda/the rebels would have helped. It still would have been a complete shock, but without seeming quite as out of left field.

Overall, such a fun read!! Had to rush out to buy the next two, cannot wait to find out where this is going. I just know it’s going to hurt 😁

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