Reviews tagging 'War'

Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace

14 reviews

starccato's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-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? No

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Body horror, Child abuse, Murder, Death, Gore, Grief, Police brutality, Violence, War, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Physical abuse, and Torture

Moderate: Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, and Medical trauma

frantic_vampire's review

adventurous dark funny 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

4.0

This book was brutal. It just kept hitting with everything that it had. There was hardly anytime to catch your breath. I had to put it down for a while because it just got way to intense and a little to real after watching the news coverage of Russia invading Ukraine.

I really liked Mal as a main character. She’s a kind of antisocial gamer/streamer who cusses a lot and I love that about her. Mal was just so real, I loved her ability to simultaneously be flipping out about everything that’s happening and not giving a single fuck about fucking shit up as much as possible for the corporation. 

As brutal as this book was, it doesn’t even begin to compare to the ending. I understand why it had to happen that way, but damn if I didn’t want things to go another way. And as much as I wanted that ending to be different, it was still really satisfying and open ended enough that I could almost see what would happen next if this was a series. All in all this was a fantastic read and I’m giving this a four out of five stars.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Police brutality, Violence, War, Blood, Body horror, Classism, Gaslighting, and Torture

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, and Terminal illness

cuppa_curiositea's review

adventurous challenging 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? No

4.5

I enjoyed this book so much! I kept wanting to know what happened next, the pacing was solid, and the characters were interesting and witty. I specifically became interested in it bc the author is very outspoken about ace-rep, and as an ace person, I realized that I couldn't think of any books that I'd read that had 0 romance or sexual tension. I didn't realize how important reading this would be for me... and it especially made me happy that the ace/aro-ness was just... part of the character. Not a big discussion about how valid those identities are, but they were simply allowed to exist without making a big deal out of it in this world... and that was incredibly special and validating to me. 

As mentioned above, there are lots of personal reasons that I enjoyed this book, but I also think it was objectively compelling and rich--both the setting and characters! This is not a happy-go-lucky story by any means, but it handles a lot of really sobering and timely topics in a way that gave me hope rather than made me feel depressed. Overall, a very impressive read! I will be keeping an eye on this author!

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Classism, Gore, Medical content, War, Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Blood, Kidnapping, and Mental illness

thehonestpuck's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

This book was so so good. Extremely devastating, (tonal spoilers for the ending, in case that's something people care about)

somehow ends on a hopeful note and completely avoids a downer ending even though on a macro level everything is fucked

. I stayed up until 3:30 AM finishing it because I literaly could not stop reading it.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, and War

Moderate: Torture and Police brutality