Reviews tagging 'Torture'

O feitiço dos espinhos by Margaret Rogerson

17 reviews

elskede's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Stalking, Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, Murder, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Torture, Death, Violence, and Misogyny

margaret_k30's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, and Death of parent

Moderate: Vomit, Physical abuse, Murder, Self harm, Violence, Torture, Panic attacks/disorders, and Kidnapping

Minor: Classism, Gore, Grief, Blood, Body shaming, and Medical trauma

ankiaisreading's review against another edition

adventurous emotional lighthearted 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Grief, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Torture, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Violence, and War

arshiya_amreen90786's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Abandonment, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Violence, Child death, and Murder

filipateodoro's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

The writing style wasn't completely my thing, but the book is FUN. The perfect book to get out of a reading slump. A bit childish for me at times, bit still entertaining and it doesn't have the usual problems that bother me in YA.
It could've been a 3.5, but the fun I had reading it and the *awesome* magic system bumped it up to a solid 4 stars.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood and Death of parent

Minor: Sexual violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Murder, and Trafficking

bagel_z's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, and Death

Moderate: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, War, and Torture

Minor: Child death

hannahbailey's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

TW: death (of parent, child), blood, violence, grief, injury, body horror, forced institutionalisation, misogyny, murder, confinement, torture, panic attacks

There are lots of strong points to this book, including a well-developed main character. The fantasy setting and magic system were interesting and had potential, but they were never fully explained. Sadly what lost me was I felt the book was being pulled multiple ways between grimoires and libraries and sorcery and power. If the author had gone with one or the other, but kept the plot the same, I think this would be a much stronger novel. That said, the grimoires element was something I'd not seen done before and that was interesting enough to keep me reading. Another book I think would translate really well on screen as a TV series.

The love interest, whilst interesting at first, changed his tune too quickly and became a character used for comic relief throughout the novel. This felt strange and unnecessary to me. Although the book has a dark academia/fantasy vibe, it wasn't dark enough to require so many quips from the guy to lighten the mood. The situations were serious but not depressing, so the humour was unwarranted (and unwanted) for me. The trigger warnings do seem very dark, but the fantasy setting and YA genre disconnects them from reality and they are less horrific in the context of the book. This is still a very strong YA novel and a younger reader may not pull it apart as much as I am prone to do.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Sexism, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Torture, and Panic attacks/disorders

rinku's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

3.5

The ideas and concepts behind Sorcery of Thorns were so interesting and the beginning was so intriguing but sadly towards the end, the book was lacking some things so that I could only give 3.5 stars. 

Like I’ve said, I really enjoyed the main idea. Elisabeth is an apprentice at a library with Grimoires, living books that are sometimes friendly, sometimes straight up evil. After being accused of a murder she didn’t commit, Elisabeth is brought into the capital by the magician Nathaniel and his demon companion Silas. There, she learns that she’s part of a bigger conspiracy that threatens the fate of her world.  

It was so sad to see how Elisabeth not only had to adjust to this new situation but how judgmental all the people were towards her. Here, I liked how Rogerson integrated modern concepts, like paparazzi, into a medieval setting. There were other interesting concepts introduced, like different dimensions. I feel like many of those idea had so much potential but not all of this potential was used. Other things I quite enjoyed were the action scenes. 

In contrast, some moments of the story were quite predictable, like

Ashcroft being the (stereotypical) villain. Until the end, I was still not sure what his motivations were

. Also, we had the typical dancing ball. Some moments didn’t make too much sense for me, like how at the beginning, Finch doesn’t believe her even though you can clearly see that Elisabeth was in a battle. This was probably because

he just wanted to get rid of Elisabeth

, but there could’ve been maybe a better explanation why Elisabeth had to leave. 

All in all, the pacing of the story was quite good but towards the end, it became a bit slow because some miscommunications happened which was annoying. Compared to this, I found it clever that

the libraries built one big summoning circle

. I have to admit that I don’t remember so much about the final fight since for some reasons, I was zoning out a lot while reading it. 

What I furthermore liked about this book was the writing style. It portrays the emotions of the main character well, describes magic and everything else quite vividly and creates atmospheric settings, like the libraries or the Thorn Manor. What I noticed though is that the German translation that I’ve read had some grammar mistakes and missing words. 

When looking at the characters, I liked both Nathaniel and Elisabeth. Elisabeth was sometimes a bit too naïve for my taste, e. g. believing that Ashcroft’s doctor would actually help her. There was some chemistry between them, and I appreciated that the romance was more on the slow burn side – because we meet him in the course of the first pages, I was afraid that I would be an insta love. What was also great was the development of the characters. Another character I liked was Silas. He’s so interesting and you should never forget that he’s a demon, no matter how nicely he acts. 

Overall, I have the feeling that more could have been made of Sorcery of Thorns. With the world and the characters, there’s an interesting basis but the plot just lacked some things for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Confinement

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Violence, Murder, and Death of parent

Minor: Sexual content and Torture

sydapel's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful slow-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? It's complicated

3.0

Really wanted to love this a little more, as I was a big ol fan of Elisabeth's story and character arc (more tall women with sword skills in YA pls!!). However, I didn't feel like the world building was done as well as it could have been and Nathaniel was a little confusing as a love interest. Hoping for a second book though. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexism, Violence, Classism, Gaslighting, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Torture

sammymilfort's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, Blood, and Body horror

Moderate: Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Gore

Minor: Child death and Vomit