Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

31 reviews

adventurous dark 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: Yes

This book was so long. Why wasn't it split into two? At one point I kept checking the audiobook too see how much time was left. It really felt like it was dragging on some how ,despite listening to it at a faster speed. The ending picked up, but that's just because of the in the moment action and drama during war/the frontlines.

Still tons of questions, as mentioned in my review of the first book. And.... these questions continue, thoughts notes below.
  •  Cat? (that's it. that's the question) Poorly written character that didn't start to have substance, besides "Mean girl", until later in the book and then for someone who was so 'pivotal' she just.... vanished in the late second half of the book.
  • Violet somehow gets more childish in this book? How did we stall out with her character growth in such a long second installment?
  • The fighting between her and Xayden draaaaaged on. It became very wash, rinse, repeat. I grew weary of it.
  • There are now so many side characters that I'm getting them confused...

The plot twists were (slightly) less visible in this book than the first, there was one notable thing that caught me by surprise.
Jack Barlow
  I pegged as being a twist but not HOW the twist was spun, so that was actually pretty great.

Overall this book was.... dramatic. Tense, emotional and full of various kinds of drama, but with very little character growth compared to what we saw in the first book.


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adventurous inspiring tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional funny medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

This was fine. I only read it because I was sick with the flu and Libby had the audiobook available for immediate borrow. It definitely did not need to be this long. I was a bit shocked at the twists at the end
we all knew Jack was shady and not gonna change, but rip xaden for taking one for the team
and the world building got a bit more interesting but if the next book is more than 500 pages, I'm gonna give it a miss (from the library) 

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Slow first half of the story - but paced amped up in the second half ! Can’t wait for the next book!
What a cliffhanger!

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adventurous dark 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

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-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

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I think that this book was ultimately just too formulaic. I felt like I was just rereading the first book. Yarros even tried to replicate the whole enemies to lovers vibe, which was annoying given that the characters were already lovers. On that note, Violet just annoyed me in this one. Many of her choices seemed to exist only to drive the plot, rather than because of her characterization. Despite the lack of growth for Violet and Xaden, I did love to see some of the other characters really grow into their own in this book. Some of them truly took me by surprise. I wish Yarros had focused a little more on other characters instead of rehashing the same things over and over again in Violet’s head. And speaking of rehashing—there were a few too many action scenes in this for me. It felt repetitive and made the book drag out for longer than it needed to be. And despite the high stakes, I didn’t feel the tension that they deserve. Violet never really fails at anything, and it starts to feel too easy at a certain point. The series definitely has interesting worldbuilding and concepts but I don’t think it’s executed as well as it could be. 

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