Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

El Imperio del Vampiro by Jay Kristoff

100 reviews

booksarefriends_notfood's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Cursing, Death, Body horror, War, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Death of parent, Child abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Child death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Sexual content, Sexism, and Torture

cakeylu's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Child abuse, Grief, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Outing, Torture, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Violence, and Suicide

Moderate: Child death, Bullying, and Animal death

vicktorea's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I liked it, pity the author is problematic

half the time I didn’t know what was going on but what I did grasp, gripped me.

I liked the characters, the adventure, the atmosphere but this was SO mfing loooooong!!!! Like did it really need to be that long ???! 😭

I listened to the audio via Libby which was great!


I bought the physical copy before I realized the author had made anti-Semitic comments and I don’t condone that whatsoever. Like why do authors have to do this shit. No only are they harming a whole populous of people but they take the enjoyment out of something that people shouldn’t feel guilty doing. So yeah, fuck you JK (and all the other racist/problematic authors) for that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Violence, Sexual content, and Death

Moderate: Death of parent and Homophobia

zoe_mh's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Gore, and Death

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Outing, and Animal death

Minor: Child death and Child abuse

ketreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Empire of the Vampire was a pick by a friend of mine for our book-buddy-duo.
I had not heard of this book, nor read any of Jay Kristoff's other works before starting on this one.

Simply: I loved it.
Kristoff's use of age old vampire lore + grim-dark & French Gothic setting is something that just fits together effortlessly. The world he has created is full of darkness, danger and years of history that has created the feeling of a well-realised and lived in world.

This book follows our main character of Gabriel de Leon throughout two time-lines in his life:
Naive boy becoming a legend, and the broken legend trying to survive in a world that failed him.
It is a tale about love, loss, faith, humanity, and found family. The book starts with our character already defeated and alone, being forced to tell his story to another. He's immediately a dick, unlikeable and arrogant, even at his lowest. Throughout the story you come to understand him better (often better than even he seems to understand himself), feel for him, his family, and his friends. The story is one of adventure, mystery but most importantly it's a human story.
In a world full of vampires, the story is about humans and the lengths they would go to protect those in-which they love.
I liked it a lot.

Though do be warned this is a foul mouthed and often gory tale, I never found it without reason to be.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism and Animal death

An animal close to the main character dies at one section and is slightly graphic but not gratuitous

tatiannaskye's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

This book took me practically a whole month to read and at first part of me hated that it was taking me so long but the other part now actually doesn’t mind. This book tore my heart in half and left me to stitch it back together. I felt as if I was watching the most complex movie I have ever watched in my life while reading this book. The Worldbuilding was phenomenal and unimaginable. Just the way that this story, Gabriel’s story was laid out was unalike anything I’ve ever read. This by far is now a new favorite series of mine, hope the next book comes out soon.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Violence, Death, Cannibalism, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, War, Slavery, Sexual content, and Homophobia

Minor: Abandonment

Really just like Murder, death, blood, and religious bigotry.

constellation_library's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This was my most highly anticipated read of 2021, and I can say with my whole chest that it did not disappoint. Gabriel De Leon is one of the most unlikeable MCs, but he has his reasons, and his story is told through interview, which reads very Interview with a Vampire or Name of the Wind. This story will destroy you in the best way possible.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Child death

lunaruprising's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Sexism, and Sexual content

tallangryplanet's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

In a world where the sun barely shines anymore, the last Silversaint shares the tale of his life with a vampire. 

The vampires in this story are not the sparkly kind, but rather brutal creatures with an incredible hunger for power. I would like to start by saying that this book was way more explicit than I expected, so if you're sensitive to gore and violence I'd advise to go in mentally prepared. However, even though those elements sometimes threw me off, the book was still pretty enjoyable. 

There are two timelines here, following two different moments in the protagonist's life. In the beginning it felt a bit info-dumpy because of how complex the world was and all the interruptions to explain some aspects of the lore, but it picked up later, and it wasn't too hard to follow the different stories. The plot itself was interesting, and the different characters made it more dynamic without getting too confusing. 

This was, in general, a pleasant reading experience. I don't have a particular reason for my rating, but rather the feeling that it could've been better, and that some parts were just too heavy and dense. However, it was not at all a bad book, and if you don't mind taking some time to read it (this is not the kind of story you're done with in an afternoon), I totally encourage darker fantasy fans to give it a go. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Homophobia and Suicidal thoughts

rabidpookie's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad 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: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Grief, War, Religious bigotry, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, and Sexual content