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rayne_1906'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, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, and Violence
Moderate: Alcohol, Drug use, Medical content, Self harm, and Homophobia
macakova'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
amazing, heart breaking
they all have a special place in my heart and i already miss them, they all deserved so much better
Graphic: Violence, Torture, and Death
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual assault, Rape, and Homophobia
e113'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? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, and Death
Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault
Minor: Self harm
bisquii'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
3.0
READ TRIGGER WARNINGS BEFORE READING!
WARNING:
Unrealistic depiction of medication/prescription drugs (antipsychotics)
Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence
The book does not pull any punches or sugarcoat traumatic events, please be careful. If you have any doubt about being okay with reading about any of the trigger warnings, do know that the depictions of them are very graphic!jenarae'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
4.75
Graphic: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Alcohol, Child abuse, Drug use, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
Minor: Homophobia and Grief
lunahale'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
5.0
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Confinement, Gun violence, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Alcoholism, Sexual assault, and Rape
Minor: Self harm
sawyer_obrien'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? No
5.0
This is a new adult level novel as it is set in college and has many trigger warnings. Please read through them carefully before deciding to read!
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Character development:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Character development is one of the strongest aspects of this series. Though the plot may be wildly fantastical, the development of characters is incredibly realistic based off of their personalities and the experiences they go through
Plot:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The plot of this series is out of this world and incredibly complex. Personally, I don't mind that it is unrealistic in places because I think you have to go in expecting a bit of that. The three main plotlines are well woven so that, by the end, nothing feels out of place.
Diversity: ⭐⭐⭐
This was incredibly difficult for me to score. The representation of queer identities is strong compared to the average book, but the racial/ethnic diversity is lacking. However, the fandom makes up for that. Where there are characters that have very few physical descriptions, they have built up the cast to compromise of different types of people that weren't necessarily present in the text. If taking the book completely out of context, I would probably rate the diversity two stars for the gay and demisexual representation. If you count that the fandom labels characters as bisexual, black, asian, indigenous, etc. that score goes goes significantly up. Take my score with a grain of salt and just know that the author is a flawed human being and the actual text does not contain the amount of representation it ought to.
Willingness to reread:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is my favorite book. I will reread it over and over and each time I will focus on a new quote that I love or interaction that made me stop and think about the way I look at certain aspects of my life
Writing style:⭐⭐⭐⭐
This book is originally a Russian novel and has been self published in English. There are mistakes. I was willing to overlook them in this case because everything else made up for it in my opinion. The narrator, a third person limited view of the main character, Neil Josten, has a very specific style. There are a lot of paragraphs of text describing past events or connections that Neil makes. I enjoy this type of writing style, but if you prefer more interaction based and dialogue heavy text, you may not enjoy this as much as I did.
Romance: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This book does begin the romance of the series. It is not a typical romance in that there are very clear boundaries that they each adhere to. Personally, I really appreciate this portrayal. It is very rare that you see romances written between characters who have experienced trauma to this extent and I actually think Sakavic did a good job with it. I have never read anything with consent this well done.
Sports accuracy:⭐⭐⭐⭐
As someone who played lacrosse for many years, certain parts of the sports descriptions stood out to me in a negative way. You can tell that the author has never played a sport similar to this. Granted, it is a fictional sport, so a certain amount you will just have to accept as the nature of the sport. I was able to overlook the few places that the lack of sports knowledge shone through and if you aren't a sports person, I don't think it will distract from the novel at all.
Please note the trigger warnings on this series and this book in particular. The King's Men mostly has descriptions of torture and if you can't read that, I strongly suggest skipping this book!
If you'd like to discuss this book, please DM me at sawyer.reading on Instagram, I'd absolutely love to chat!
Graphic: Torture
Moderate: Sexual assault
Minor: Ableism and Child abuse
fanboyriot's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Slow Burn
Found Family
Hurt/Comfort
Angst with a Happy Ending
Mutual Pining (though they don’t know it)
This is obviously my favorite of the series. I love the character development in this last book. The relationships between the foxes getting stronger, Neil finally clueing in on the thing him and Andrew have and being literally the last person to know.
It was an emotional roller coaster for sure, with Neil’s life going bad to worse to okay again to having hope for the first time in his life. Of having a chance of a future. It was absolutely amazing.
I think this book did a good job with taking care of any loose ends. It is the perfect example of angst with a happy ending and I don’t see myself getting over it anytime soon. Here’s to another re-read.
POV: Third Person
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Rep: Demisexual (MC), Gay (LI), Gay (SCs), BIPOC (SCs), Mental Illness
Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Death, Torture, Blood, Body horror, and Violence
Moderate: Gaslighting, Alcohol, Cursing, Mental illness, Murder, and Sexual content
Minor: Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Addiction, Animal death, Death of parent, Homophobia, and Physical abuse
natnat_7'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? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Kidnapping, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Stalking, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Medical trauma, Torture, Violence, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Medical content, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Body horror
Moderate: Misogyny, Outing, Police brutality, Self harm, Sexism, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Addiction
Minor: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, and Rape
otbval's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Minor: Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Car accident, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, and Violence