Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

14 reviews

emilywemily6's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

4.5

I am really enjoying this series as a whole, but you can definitely tell this is a middle book in a saga where most of the book is spent in inner/external turmoil and not a lot happens in the plot. The last 100 pages blew me away and I couldn’t put it down though! This book feels necessary to introduce important characters, show character development in Alina, and set up for the final conflict in the third book, but it felt slow and was a little bit of a slog to get through. Mal got a bit annoying but as Alina understood him better I guess I did too. And I somehow have a crush on both Nicolai and the Darkling (despite everything).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and War

Moderate: Grief, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, and Bullying

Minor: Alcohol, Sexual content, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

i_write_on_occasion's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

Quite boring and only got interesting towards the end. One of the sub plots was not well executed.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content, Alcoholism, and Violence

Minor: Gun violence

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, War, Death, Confinement, Violence, Murder, Gore, Emotional abuse, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Animal death, Classism, Racism, Gun violence, Torture, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Xenophobia, Body horror, and Stalking

Minor: Sexual content, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Incest, Infidelity, Drug use, Fatphobia, Child death, Death of parent, and Child abuse

thebookaddict's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense fast-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

The first book was better in my opinion. The action came early in this book and too much happened at once. The book got better as the story proceeded but I do think that some part are boring and unnecessary for the storyline.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Sexual content, Violence, War, Death, Kidnapping, Torture, Blood, Gun violence, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Cursing, and Injury/Injury detail

david_slack110507's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

This book is much better than the first one in my opinion yet I feel unable to give it a 4-star rating. I feel like it's closer to a 3.5 or 3.75 rounded down but I may bump it up after I let my thoughts ruminate on it. 

I found that this book was much more gripping that the previous one which very much felt like the first book in a trilogy (Not a bad thing but it definitely had that feeling) whereas while the long chapters remain in this one (And I'm assuming in all of Leigh Bardugo's work) I found it much easier and enjoyable to get through as well as it taking me less time. I liked a lot of the new characters the obvious being Nikolai who I feel brought a lot of charm to the novel and his back and forth with Alina was probably one of my favourite parts of the novel. Speaking of Alina, this time around while she still doubts herself and has her insecurities she felt a lot more involved in the action and getting to see her utilise the Cut and her power was nice to see throughout the novel. 

I also really liked that we got to see more of the military-type operation and world of the Grishaverse/Ravka and Alina coming into control of the Second Army was really cool to see as it was a nice change of pace to have her decide to fight back against the Darkling (As briefly mentioned above). Tolya and Tamar were also a pretty good addition to the ensemble of characters even if they don't get a lot of backstory or much to do besides protecting Alina. 

I can definitely see how some may not like this book as like how I feel with the first book feeling like the first book in a trilogy the same could be said for this one which can definitely feel like the second book and middle-point in a trilogy with its main goal being to set up the 3rd book/conclusion and filling out the rest of time with character dramas and a larger focus on dialogue and development that action (E.g the main real conflicts only come at the beginning and the end and The Darkling remains out of the picture for nearly all of the book aside from the final confrontation and appearing physically to Alina throughout after her nichevo'ya bite)

Overall, I might have the unpopular opinion that I preferred this book to the first and found it to be much more engaging (Perhaps due to the first book having set up everything that the second book could easily and comfortably ease back into the world). I'm planning on trying to finish this series as soon as possible rather than taking a couple of months break in between like I did with this book and the first.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, and Death

Moderate: War, Gore, Grief, Stalking, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Cursing, Sexual assault, Animal death, Child death, Sexual harassment, and Animal cruelty

louise_outthere's review

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

It took me 9 months to get through the first half... It's very long to read, Alina is boring... why is Mal still alive? Thankfully by the page 300 it became interesting. If it wasn't for Nikolai I'd rate the book 2 stars only. Nikolai is by far the only one that kept me reading. Maybe developing a bit more Vasily's character would have been a great idea.
The first book was amazing, I'm kind of disappointed by this one. Still want to read the third one I heard it was way better!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Body horror, and War

Minor: Sexual content

onefineelephant's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

 8/10. Alina and Mal are both annoying and I don't like them but because they are so annoying, they deserve each other because neither one should be subjected onto anyone else. With that being said, I love Nikolai even if he is a little sh*t. I also really enjoy the twins. I liked how this book had more of a plot than the first one did. Also, I feel like this one was more rich and had more depth than the first one. The ending was jarring but not entirely terrible. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Genocide, Grief, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, War, Toxic relationship, Death, and Gore

nisha_27'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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood and Death

Minor: Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Cursing

thesecretsapphic's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, War, Emotional abuse, Murder, Pedophilia, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Trafficking, and Rape

bcrowes11's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

3.75

I found the writing in the middle to be disjointed at times or simply flat and perhaps it's because of seeing it from Alina's perspective, but there is no lingering on what happened, were just told this happened, then this happened, And now this is happening without much real exploration of what happened.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Sexual content