Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

22 reviews

litliz's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Violence, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Sexism, Bullying, Death, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Torture, and Vomit

bree_h_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

I read this a few years ago and refused to read the rest of the series because the ending upset me so much. And while it obviously didn’t change over the years I was interested to see how my views of the book changed.

To start, the prose has moments of being less than great, but overall I think read pretty well. Which was an interesting contrast to ACOTAR. I definitely think to narrator was a big help with that as she had a great performance and I felt like she added a lot of personality to it. Her skill as a narrator also really elevated the characters and helped them stand out a bit more to me. Finally, Celaena and Dorian’s dynamic is amazing. While between the two love interest options I think he’s the BEST, I’m not mad about them remaining friends.

However, the book had its flaws that I had a hard time looking past. The biggest was the POV changes. I was frequently lost on what POV we were in as they all sounded very similar and there was no clear marker for the change in POV. It also felt unnecessary, like SJM didn’t know how to deliver all the information from one POV and was compensating with these POV changes. I also wasn’t a fan of the love triangle and it felt HEAVILY skewed towards Dorian. Which wasn’t helped by Chaol and Celaena’s dynamic changing so quickly and feeling unearned in the shift to friendship. Also both the guys were kinda sexist and it was hard to get behind either one of them being with Celaena.

Overall the book was just okay. I enjoyed it more than I thought which was a nice surprise.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Death, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Slavery, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Physical abuse, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, and Racism

ladypalutena's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.75

I tried to read this book a few years ago, and got maybe 3 chapters in before I gave up. And now I'm not too sure why I gave up on it then - maybe I wasn't in the mood for the type of story it was going to tell. 

Is this book ground-breaking? No. A teen who, by all rights, should never have gotten to where they are in life is the "chosen one" picked up by a plucky crown prince and made to fight a ton of grown men to win the right to become an official assassin. 

To which I say,

obviously the king has issues, and most likely he wasn't even looking for an assassin to begin with, and I'm not too sure if this whole thing wasn't just a plot to pull our main character, Celaena, back into the open.

The biggest issue I found is that I never felt afraid for Celaena at any point. She is proven over and over again, in every situation, that she is better than everyone else. She's not only beautiful, but she's deadlier than everyone, and oh by the way, did you know she's only 18?

It is also so painfully obvious where this book is going to go. There's a weak attempt at misdirection with Celaena believing that one specific person is the champion-murderer, which made me roll my eyes. Maas all but crams it down your throat early on, and then dances around the lumpy blanket on the ground just to whip off the cover late in the book and go "Surprise!" But by then, it's not a surprise and the real villain has been super obvious for way too long. 

The world is interesting, and while our MC Celaena can be thorny at times, she's an assassin and this is the only way she knows she can't be hurt. 

So far, so good. I'm interested in where this is going to lead, and even more interested in how I'm going to juggle my Libby holds for this series when every one of them has a vastly different wait time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, and Murder

Moderate: War, Violence, and Slavery

Minor: Death of parent, Sexual harassment, Drug use, and Drug abuse

longlostlillian's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, and Blood

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Addiction, War, Slavery, Sexual content, Suicide, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Panic attacks/disorders

cassiecollins'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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

So, this isn't bad by any means, but I don't think it stands strong on its own. I can definitely see it as a good world-building/character development base for the rest of the series (hopefully), but alone it's pretty meh. I did really like Celaena as a character—she was by far the strongest part of the book. Everything else (the love-triangle, arbitrary "competition", pick-me-girl overtures, etc.) got a bit grating. I had to keep reminding myself that there was potential here. Like I said, there is definitely enough that I have hope the rest of the series can improve and build upon, but this first book is fairly weak on its own.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug abuse and Violence

Minor: Sexual violence

aubrieanne's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent, Slavery, and Drug abuse

Minor: Blood and Genocide

infjkiki'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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Violence, Slavery, Drug abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Classism, and Death

Moderate: Gaslighting

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Rape

carlyjoann's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Slavery, Drug abuse, and Death

Moderate: Vomit

rae1ear's review against another edition

adventurous challenging medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Slavery and Violence

Minor: Vomit, Drug abuse, and Sexism

cameronmh's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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? No

4.25

Great story, classic Sarah J Maas combination of court intrigue, romance, magic, and combat. Almost gave it 4.5 but then subtracted a quarter star because of all of the anti-corset bits that really rubbed me the wrong way. I listened to a solid 3 hours of the audiobook while wearing a corset, and I can tell you for dang sure my ribs were not being crushed!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Torture, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Death of parent, Death, Gore, Violence, War, Blood, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Slavery, and Animal death

Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Cursing, Rape, Addiction, Alcohol, Grief, Gaslighting, and Drug abuse

There is poison! Both a theoretical poisoning (a controlled environment, but still theoretically very dangerous) and a second scene with a purposeful poisoning with an agent that can cause death. There are also hallucinations (which end up to be technically real) caused by the poisoning.