Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Jade City by Fonda Lee

89 reviews

adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was so complicated for me 
I was nowhere near as obsessed with it as I thought it would be probably because idk for the concept of the book it felt surprisingly a lot slower paced than I would’ve expected and almost felt like a slice of life book especially until the middle/towards the end? Idk I’m gonna keep reading the series most likely but it just threw me off 
I did think the world building was done really well tho and I liked some of the characters 
also one of my biggest issues with that the fact that they killed off Lan? It made more sense towards the end of the book but for a bit I seriously thought they would bring him back to life cause I just couldn’t imagine 2 and a half more books without him

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adventurous emotional tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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adventurous dark 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: Yes

It's incredibly impressive to read a book where the characters are gangland thugs who openly admit that they would do the exact same things as their enemies if given the chance, and yet you still love them and want them to succeed. Plus there's a bit where one guy explodes a man's heart with his mind, which is pretty cool.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark tense medium-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

"She felt, strangely, that it all made sense in a perfect and terrible way. It only confirmed in her mind that the will of the gods was a conspiracy of many things; people laid the tracks of their fate yet were helpless at the same time. They’d all played their part in this—them and their enemies."

This book really just blew me away. It's a family saga, and a gangster novel, and a story about a formerly isolated nation forced to confront the wider world and figure out how to live alongside it. The world (especially the advantages and drawbacks of jade magic and how that is integrated) is fascinating, and all of the characters feel like real people. This book is long but not a single word feels wasted - everything that comes up even once matters.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous 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: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional tense medium-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

I went into Jade City with tempered expectations because of all the hype around this book, but I'm so glad to say that I loved it! I'm discovering that I love family saga dynamics in my books, and it was so well done in this book. I really appreciated the focus on family and loyalty, and it made for really interesting characters and choices. I loved that no character felt too predictable, they felt very real with well developed arcs and motivations. I thought the worldbuilding was really well done, and I loved the magic; although I kept forgetting this was "modern" until I read about TV and skyscrapers. Jade City definitely is adult and gritty, but it doesn't feel hopeless or like it's glorifying violence, it's just the environment of this clan family. I also really appreciated that the stakes felt high. I don't want to say much here, but partway through the book you realize that anything could happen and that really paid off when it came to the ending of the book. I don't normally binge series, but I found myself pausing my current kindle read so I could listen AND read to Jade City, and I'm really wanting to pick up Jade War like right now. 

Some possible cons for some people: 
- if you are highly character driven, you might not always have quite enough connection with the characters. Not to say that the characters are bad or poorly written at all, but the main characters are not necessarily the most lovable. 
- Jade City is somewhat slow paced. It never bothered me and I thought it had a good balance of action, but the book doesn't quite ramp up until maybe halfway through.
- there's a decent bit of "telling" in terms of worldbuilding. And there are sometimes flashback-type sequences to flesh out world or character development. It did not bother me and didn't feel excessive, but I know some people really hate this. 

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