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szuum's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Misogyny, Sexism, and Sexual content
Moderate: Sexual assault and Torture
avisreadsandreads's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Graphic: War, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Violence, Religious bigotry, Child death, Blood, Physical abuse, and Death
Moderate: Torture, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, and Misogyny
Minor: Vomit
awashinfeeling's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Blood, Animal death, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, and Violence
Moderate: Miscarriage, Torture, Gore, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Vomit
sarahsbooklife's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Animal death and Violence
Moderate: Murder and Blood
Minor: Sexual content, Sexism, Misogyny, Child death, and Confinement
ehmannky's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The only thing I didn't particularly love was that it felt that there were essentially two parts that felt like an ending-one part in the middle and the other was the actual end of the book. I don't want to spoil it, but I felt that after one of the major forces of antagonism in Vasya's life are defeated, there was a 50 ish page gap where the book felt like it sort of stalled. Overall, I didn't hate it and I get thematically why this split exists and the meaning behind showing that "defeating evil" is not enough for a victory in a complex world, but it felt odd in a book that's so action-focused to have this weird lull roughly 2/3rds of the way through.
Overall, extremely satisfied with this series and its ending, and good god
Graphic: Death, Animal death, Violence, Sexism, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Blood, and Child death
Moderate: Slavery, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Kidnapping
Minor: Vomit
mscalls's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Torture, Violence, and Vomit
aseaoftomes's review against another edition
- 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
This picks up right where Girl in the Tower left off with Vasya in Moscow after the events of the chaos of what happened. We continue to follow not only Vaysa, but her family members too - Olga and Sasha primarily. This book converges the two sides - in BitN we focused a lot on the pagan side of things, in GitT we focused more on the humanity and Christianity side and now it WotW we see the two come together and reach a place where both can coexist.
As with the two previous books, I loved the setting and atmosphere. Since we get to deal with both the human and the chyert sides, we get to see both human and chyert lands and I loved seeing the similarities and differences between them. I just love how Katherine Arden writes her worlds.
The writing was also fine. Of the three books, I think this is one of her strongest with regards to pacing and overall writing especially with regards to plot.
The plot was also great. Katherine Arden managed to fit a lot of different things in without it feeling disjointed or out of place. It's hard to explain much of the plot of this one because of spoilers, but I loved all of the conflict between the humans and the chyerti - that was such a huge part of the book. But also the politics and turmoil between the Rus' and the Tatars and then with Vasya and the chyerti. It was just all really interesting to watch and ultimately see how it all concluded.
Finally, the characters. I loved Vasya in this, probably the most out of the three. She really grew into her own and I feel like we got more internal conflict from her than previously. She felt more manifested in this than previously. I also really liked both Sasha and Olga's character arcs and their growth and how their relationship with Vasya was portrayed. And of course, as always, I love the chyerti - literally all of them. They add so much to the books and they're written so well. Once again we get to meet several new spirits and they were all delightful. Morozko remains my favorite (always) and I loved watching his relationship with Vasya in this book (I love them, but you probably know that already) and looking back on where they were in the first book to where they are now and I just loved it.
All in all, this is a really great conclusion to a great series, and I had a really great time rereading it. (As with all of the books, I read this in winter with snow outside because it adds an extra layer to the atmospheric element).
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death, Grief, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Violence
Minor: Excrement and Vomit
gracecleo's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
5.0
I wish there'd been an epilogue or something, I don't know... I just want to see Marya with her own little pony at Lesnaya Zemlya or getting to know more chyerti (especially little babie Ded Grib 💕) at the house by the lake. I want to know how Irina and Alyosha are doing! I want to see little Marya meet them. Show me Marya and Solovey's reunion 😭😭
Gimme a Marya spinoff book pls 🥺🥺🥺 I love her
Edit, after reflection
I'm in love with this trilogy and plan on owning all three books sometime soon. Everything about them was perfect for me: unfamiliar (to me) folklore and setting, slow-paced, effective emotional scenes, well developed characters and relationships between them, the perfect level of a romantic sub-plot, a babie mushroom boy. What more could I ask for?
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Religious bigotry, and Violence
Moderate: Misogyny