Reviews - Empire of the Damned ARC

2.46k reviews for:

Empire of the Damned ARC

Jay Kristoff

4.53 AVERAGE

settleforhalf's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark emotional 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: Yes

Dior and her relentless contratianism really did their best to grind my gears in the first half of this. I can't believe Gabriel kept expecting her to listen, but I believed even less that he eventually struck her for it, or how little time he spent dwelling on the fact that, despite all he suffered at the hands of his stepfather, he still followed in his footsteps with his own charge. I was glad to eventually get a plausible explanation for that.

And speaking of, I didn't enjoy switching storytellers. Though getting the occasional break from Gabriel's vulgarities wasn't entirely unwelcome. Pity it got replaced by annoying ye olde vampire speak though, which is equally offputting to me. When their narratives merged, it almost felt like watching a tv show with how fast the scenes switched.

Celeste is also very unsettling and took a while to get interesting on account of how tight-lipped she was about literally everything. Like, I can't believe we spent nearly the entire runtime of two books not even learning what super special powers, passed down from his super secret father, our super special protagonist can wield. Celeste's inconsistent speech patterns annoyed me too, though I guess that can be blamed on her cannibalism-induced DID. Glad Jean-François called her out on some of it.

My heart hurts for Baptiste and Aaron. I was really hoping they'd get to just... live their happy little lives in their safe little keep forever. Kristoff hates me though, so they had to suffer first, and in the worst way. And he sure made that entire battle colourful, too.

A lot of the twists were sadly very obvious and predictable - I don't believe a single thing caught me by surprise besides Isla, and Dario at the very end. Truly wasn't expecting that. But other than that, I still had a good time reading this and I'm pissed off I have to wait for the finale.

pa3jans_'s review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark 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: Complicated

natemajor's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

shiloh_shenanigans's review against another edition

5.0

This book is such a perfect combination of fantasy, horror, thriller. It has a little bit of everything! It seems like lately authors either focus too much on plot or too much on character development and world building, leaving whatever they don’t focus on lacking. Empire of the Damned has both. The pacing was excellent and I was frequently at the edge of my seat waiting for what was next. The depth of these characters sucked me in and made me feel like I was a member of each little found family that was created. I. need. more. Book 3 like yesterday please?! Papa??

kellysreads's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense medium-paced

sidekick_sammy's review against another edition

5.0

Following 2 storytellers this go-round, was an excellent follow-up to Empire of the Vampire. One moment I'd be fist-pumping, the next I'd be screaming allowed "What the hell just happened?!" Will definitely be reading this again. Can't wait for the follow-up!