Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

8 reviews

hannalizzy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.0

A great first book to kick off a series, very engaging from the start. The love triangle had so much potential, but I feel like it wasn’t explored enough, though I suppose there’s still plenty of time in the series left to flesh it out. If someone only wants to read this book for the romance, they’d be disappointed, since not much happens aside from like two scenes with just a kiss. Overall, this book does a great job setting up a really dynamic and interesting plot web for the next few books to explore. I’m already starting the next one! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Body horror, Gore, and Classism

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Sexism, Slavery, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Sexual harassment, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Cannibalism, Death of parent, Drug use, 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

mandiemarie's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful 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? No

4.25

I love this book. The majority of it is world building, as is the beginning of most fantasy books. So lots of focus on aesthetics, description of characters and clothes. Due to this, it starts slow. But once the world is adequately built, it starts to pick up. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Murder, Toxic relationship, Drug use, and Torture

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Slavery, and Racism

rafacolog'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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Blood, Murder, Death, Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, Child abuse, Genocide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Slavery

scarlett_f's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Slavery, Blood, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Bullying, Death of parent, Gore, Cursing, Death, Grief, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Stalking, and Violence

bi_n_large's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Death, Murder, Blood, Violence, and Confinement

Minor: Slavery, Death of parent, Rape, Suicide, Animal death, and Toxic relationship

filipa_maia's review against another edition

adventurous tense slow-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? Yes

3.75

I have to say that I was expecting something a little different from this read. It was really good but was not amazing.

This world created by Sarah J. Maas is very interesting, and the storyline is very appealing and makes us want to read more, but I was expecting something more. I don't know how to explain it better. Maybe the hype around this book made me thing that this book was something else. Somehow I feel that this book did not needed to be this big to tell this story. Maybe a shorter book would have been better for me, I found some parts quite boring.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and want to read the second one to discover what kind of adventures are awaiting for Celaena.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Colonisation, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Confinement, Genocide, Grief, and Toxic friendship

tiredtori's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious relaxing medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Murder, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Confinement, Classism, Sexism, Slavery, Grief, and Vomit