Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Jade City by Fonda Lee

132 reviews

spunlines's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

More gangster movie than fantasy at times. She crafts protagonists that would be antagonists in most stories. Very well-done, but not what I expected coming from more traditional epic fantasy. 

Strong moments throughout, with a perplexing ending that makes me need to pick up the second book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

carla20's review

adventurous dark 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’m not the biggest fantasy reader, but this was amazing. The world building was so vivid and easy to digest, it never felt info-dumpy. I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the trilogy. 

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Content Warnings

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

Minor: Sexual content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Dementia, and Self harm

bergha1998's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.0

I think this was another book I went into knowing too little about. I knew it was a mafia story set in Asia, and that was about it. I erroneously thought there would be more romance or more female characters, unfortunately I was wrong on both counts. Overall, I just found it to be very dry, and the expositions went on for ages. 

Fantasy/Historical, Mafia, 1 🔥

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Murder, Body horror, Gore, Grief, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Violence, Blood, Colonisation, Addiction, Alcohol, Death, Cursing, and Gun violence

Minor: Sexual content

daydream_e'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

4.75

Amazing characters who are deeply flawed and yet so easy to care about. Excellent portrayal of civil war and the complexities of post-colonial development, as well as international politics - I’m  considering recommending this to my undergraduate comparative politics students as an enjoyable way to consider how natural resources, colonial history, corruption and crime, and international politics interact. Particularly given the author has no academic history/polisci background, it’s incredibly impressive that she was able to create a fictional world with such realistic politics, and it speaks to what must be an incredible grasp of colonial and post-colonial Asian history. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Addiction, Violence, Drug use, Murder, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, and Gun violence

Moderate: War, Suicide attempt, Chronic illness, Xenophobia, Racism, Colonisation, Sexism, Misogyny, Mental illness, Dementia, Death of parent, Suicide, and Gore

Minor: Homophobia

Racism, xenophobia, war, and colonization are within the context of a fictional country with obvious real world analogues, but not one-to-one with real life events. Mental illness and drug use/addiction are also within the context of a fictional drug. Violence and injury is often very explicit - think hard R rated action movie - but not dwelled on excessively. Grief is a major theme throughout the book for many characters BIG SPOILER:

including the death of a POV character

kirstym25's review

adventurous emotional 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: Death, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction and Drug use

xoconnellevx's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

If you're thinking of reading this book: do it!

The characters and the world felt alive right from the very beginning. Fonda is incredible at crafting characters that feel as though they are living and breathing. 

Athough time was taken to get the major plot points moving, it still didn't feel tiresome to read; the vast majority of chapters felt neccessary.

I had so much fun reading and I understood every character motivation fully; even of I didn't agree with it.

Definitely will be finishing the series and I'm excited to see what's to come!

<Spoilers Below>





My only major critique, I would have loved to spend more time fleshing out Lan as a character, seeing as he death didn't seem to impact me as much as it did shock me. I felt pity for the Shae/Hilo/Andy losing Lan but not for losing Lan as a character. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Mental illness, Body horror, Blood, Death, and Violence

Minor: Death of parent

dailbrae's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Addiction, Drug use, Death, Drug abuse, War, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Alcohol

lisafer's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Violence, Suicide, Murder, Gun violence, Grief, Drug use, Death, and Blood

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

3.0

I wanted to like this book way more than I did and I just didn't. 
I wish I had read a review that said "this Godfather-esqe story", because then I would have been prepared for how politically based boring it was. This was 612 pages of politics, I read it all and the question still remains, "why should I care?". I don't know which side to root for because I just simply didn't care. 

I really enjoyed the magic system and the martial arts/hand to hand combat scenes that were described. 

I'm giving this 3 stars out of 5, I didn't really like it very much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Bullying, Death, Addiction, Body horror, and Gun violence

luciguara's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring 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

4.5

no le doy 5 porque se me hizo un poquitin lento en algunas partes pero fue god y ademas siendo una trilogia siento q este primer libro puede ser muy buena base

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Grief, Mental illness, and Murder