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4.29 AVERAGE
4.29 AVERAGE
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, War
Enjoyable.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Gun violence, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Vomit, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Outing, Classism
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy
I've heard even better things about Empire of the Damned, so I'm so excited to get started!
I’m not usually a fantasy reader, but I find vampires really interesting and wanted to see what they looked like through a fantasy lense compared to horror. Whilst there was certainly a lot of horror aspects to this book, it is still very firmly in the fantasy realm, so that did affect my feelings towards it partly.
I’ll start with the positives. Overall, I think the story brings an interesting perspective on the vampire genre as a whole, and I liked the idea of the Silversaints and how they’re half monster, half human, who have to battle to control their urges to give into their vampiric nature. It’s interesting to see how their humanity puts them apart from full vampires, whilst they still have that knowledge that if they aren’t careful, they can become just like them.
I also thought the descriptions were pretty well done too, I could definitely picture everything that was going on very vividly, and the illustrations were also a beautiful way to show certain things.
But now, onto the negatives. At times, the dialogue was TERRIBLE, and read very much like something an edgy teenager would write on Wattpad. It was full of immature attempts at comedy, and it often felt very flat and forced.
I also found the amount of misogyny towards every female character to be utterly ridiculous. By the end of the book, all but one named female character has died in a horrific and brutal way. Not to mention the amount of misogynistic slurs and rape depictions throughout the novel. The only female character who doesn’t meet her end is Dior, and she’s written very much like a ‘not like other girls’ character that makes it so obvious the book was written by a man who has no idea how teenage girls actually act. I found all of this very disappointing.
Overall, I almost feel like I have a form of Stockholm Syndrome with this book. I was reading it for such a long time that now i’m unsure if my feeling of enjoyment at finishing it is actually because I liked the book, or if I’m just glad it’s finally over. I may consider picking up the other books in the series, but for now I’m glad I got through this.
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail