Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

32 reviews

cayliehausman's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.5

WOW it took me a while to get into this series, but for this one SJM didn’t hold punches. Action, adventure, tragedy, answers to questions and establishing more questions!

I hope that manon changes sides and Dorian is able to heal and that Elide finds Aelin and so much more

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Murder, Emotional abuse, Torture, War, Physical abuse, Blood, Body horror, Violence, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Medical content

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

jessicalarson125's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Pregnancy, Confinement, Genocide, and Body horror

Minor: Slavery, Child abuse, and Torture

aklovekorn's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Child death, Grief, Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Death, and Gore

merrow's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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

Throughout this book, the action sequences are very well crafted to fit both the setting and the characters. Some of these characters really come into their own here, and the plot takes a direction that feels fitting but I didn’t fully expect.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Miscarriage, Violence, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Murder, and Blood

Minor: Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Torture, Slavery, Pregnancy, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, and Sexual content

annikenr's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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: Blood, Torture, Vomit, Violence, Body horror, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Rape, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, and Slavery

jessversteeg's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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? No

4.0

Even on the second read, I loved it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Forced institutionalization, Death, Sexual assault, Grief, Body horror, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Blood, Murder, Confinement, Pregnancy, Vomit, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, and Child death

jordan_uhden's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Gore, Kidnapping, Blood, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Death, Body horror, Slavery, and Rape

liesthemoontells's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Continues the strong character development and worldbuilding that Maas delivered in Heir of Fire, with some satisfying plot twists and emotional breakthroughs for various characters. 

This is also the first book that starts to get properly horny.

Many of the descriptions  are starting to become repetitive - there are only so many times that I can read that someone was "covered in black blood" or had "eyes lined with silver" (just say they're filled with tears jfc). Also the way that Maas describes territorial Fae males is already exhausting, and the lack of nuance between familial vs romantic territorialism makes a big middle chunk of the book seem uncomfortably incest-y.

Overall this is stronger than the first two entries in the series and makes me excited to continue reading, but imo, a small step down in quality from Heir of Fire. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Body horror, Blood, Forced institutionalization, Colonisation, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Murder, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, War, and Vomit

Minor: Incest

sreilly1's review

adventurous dark hopeful medium-paced

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

4.0

Lot of plot happenings, setting up for some good romance 😋 but I can definitely see myself forgetting what happens in this book later on 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Miscarriage, Genocide, Gore, Pregnancy, Vomit, War, Confinement, Child death, and Death

annamary54's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

4.75

i will give a full review later, mostly gave it a 4.75 cause i didn’t care about the witches until the last quarter of the book

it’s later: 
honestly reading these back to back i can’t remember what was heir of fire and what was queen of shadows, but i’m gonna try my best. in the last one i struggled to care about the witches at all, and the first 3/4 i thought were very slow. this one definitely moved a lot faster from the beginning. i did start to care about the witches in this one, but like i said it took me until the last quarter to really care about that whole story line. all of the books before this one felt like exposition and this one actually had some action in it. i gave it such a high rating because i really was engaged and didn’t want to stop reading basically the whole time. (except the witch chapters, i’d usually use those as a stopping point)

I did NOT see adieon father reveal coming, but that spices stuff up for sure.

i also shouldn’t have read acotar before this cause now the romance is so pg to me, i’m like COME ON LETS GET TO IT, but whatever i’m still reading kicking my legs behind me and twirling my hair. it’s hard to write anything about this book cause so much happened, and so many story lines. loved the development in all the characters. and i’m excited to see more of the ones that haven’t fully bloomed.

VERY happy about the Lysandra redemption arc because i kinda loved her from the start…although i do have a problem loving villains. (arobynn…for a lil bit, and lorcan when he was still in bad guy mode)

overall, i rate based on how engaged i was with a book, and i was VERY engaged except the witch chapters for the first 3/4 of the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Gore, Body horror, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Violence, Murder, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Pregnancy and Miscarriage

Minor: Sexual content, Drug use, Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Alcohol, and Excrement