Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Jade City by Fonda Lee

77 reviews

lejones1785's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.25

I had a tough time with this book, and I was really looking forward to reading it. It seemed like a lot of space in the story is just filler. Jade this, jade that, jade is worth ruining a city for. The characters are so smart, the characters have inner turmoil, on and on without much real substance. The main scenes in the book are over in a matter of moments, so there wasn't really any payoff for the filler material. It felt like this book was just for world and character building, so maybe the second book has more story?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and War

Moderate: Violence, War, Addiction, Blood, Murder, Bullying, Drug use, Gaslighting, Grief, and Death

dreadspawn's review against another edition

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Death, Gore, War, Gun violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Grief, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Body horror

widowrites's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I really enjoyed this book. The family draws you in despite their flaws. The plot is tense and keeps you on the edge of your seat. The only reason it didn’t get five stars is that there are chunks of story that felt unnecessary. It made the book feel long when otherwise it might not have.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Bullying

Moderate: Misogyny, Body horror, Addiction, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Dementia

pierrereads's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Gun violence, and Blood

Moderate: War and Sexual content

olympia98's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Ottimo inizio.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Dementia, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Colonisation, Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Bullying, Car accident, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Blood, Deadnaming, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Body shaming, Drug use, Hate crime, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Classism, Death of parent, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Violence, and War

loudmouthbooklover's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The book was rich with description and world building. The characters had so many layers and the plot was wonderful

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Self harm, Torture, Classism, Death of parent, Drug use, War, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Murder, and Toxic friendship

anni_swanilda's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Dementia, Grief, Murder, Cursing, Death, Toxic relationship, Gore, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Xenophobia, Drug use, War, and Gun violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Death of parent, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual content, Confinement, and Addiction

Minor: Racism

squishy_mage42's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Violence

camrich's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

So I’m finally getting around to this series and WOW. Yea I definitely get the hype over this book. Not gonna lie, the first like 25-30% was a bit slow but there was definitely a lot of interesting clan politics/world building to keep me interested.
I will say that the only 2 reasons this book isn’t a 5 star read for me were 1. I felt like the characters weren’t well-developed enough for me to really care until almost the end of the book (except

✨Hilo✨

, but I do understand that there’s gonna be a lot of character development across books 2 and 3; and 2. It felt a bit like a set up book for the next 2 books
Overall REALLY good though and I would def recommend to anyone who likes gritty crime shows like Warrior, Peaky Blinders, Sons of Anarchy, etc. Will absolutely be reading Jade War & Legacy!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Violence

Moderate: Drug use and Sexual content

vnderseelie's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

The overall setting of Jade City was amazing and the structures of the clans and Kekons society was intriguing. However, most if them were introduced too late in the story for my opinion and that made it difficult to understand them from time to time. As a reader you are treated as if you already know everything about the terms, phrases, gods, etc. that are mentioned in the book and I feel like some points have not been addressed at all and you are forced to accept them as they are.

The characters are really interesting and actually carry a lot of the story, since their flaws and decisions let the events progress and escalate further, which makes them feel alive and well merged with the world Fonda Lee built. Nevertheless, a lot of the actions that the characters took did not make a lot of sense in specific situations or were needlessly cruel, even given the topics the book deals with. Especially the grandfather gave the impression that he just appeared to talk the others down. Additionally, I really disagreed with some scenes and the behavior in them, which made it hard for me to continue the book sometimes.

Some scenes felt a bit too long or they were repeated in almost the same way too often, which made them repetitive to read and it seemed to just add to the page count of the book, without providing a real impact on anything.

All in all the idea of Jade City was really interesting to me, but I think the actual translation into the story was lacking in my opinion.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Addiction, Child abuse, War, Violence, Sexism, Domestic abuse, Murder, Drug use, Abandonment, Alcohol, Blood, Racism, Gun violence, Drug abuse, Cursing, and Death