Reviews with content warning for Classism - Kings Cage

Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Kings Cage by Victoria Aveyard

12 reviews

benefactory's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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the_prophecy_13's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-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? It's complicated

3.25

The bad:

The bath scene. What. was that.
The pacing in the first 60% of the book is very drawn-out.
It feels like Victoria was just giving Mare more trauma for the heck of it. I don't particularly like Mare, but I don't want her to be miserable constantly! Girlie got to be happy for, like, three chapters in the entire book
Speaking of Mare's trauma, it's not well done. I do like that she has some PTSD symptoms, but I wish the book delved deeper into them. I feel like some of the things she went through should have affected her a whole lot more than "she flinches when this person is nearby bc they hurt her :((("
Mare is inconsistent. She seems to flip-flop between personalities (fiery, stubborn, and proud; competent and friendly; paranoid and uncertain; vacant and hopeless), and I know some of that could be due to trauma, but I feel like she's just an inconsistent character overall.
Also, Mare says "the shadow of the flame" again. Victoria. I am begging you to stop. Flames do not have shadows. I repeat, FLAMES DO NOT HAVE SHADOWS. PLEASE Google it. (I don't know why this bothers me so much, lol.)
Relating to the above, some of the writing was just... cringe. I don't care enough to go back through the book to find examples, but it sometimes felt like Victoria was trying too hard to be all edgy and poetic and deep. Girl, it's an average YA. Don't take yourself so seriously.
I didn't like Cameron's POV chapters. She's just annoying. It's bad enough seeing her through Mare's eyes.

The good:

The ending (the last 100 pages or so) was quite good, as usual in this series, and kept me engaged.
The final battle was very tense and felt realistic for the parties involved.
Evangeline, surprisingly, got very compelling all of a sudden.
She's still not a good person, but I empathize more with her now that she's not just a bully. I'm hoping for more POV chapters.
Mare's dynamics with other characters were so much better than in previous books. Her and Cal have much better chemistry and interactions
(though it's a shame they're only around each other for the last 40% or so of the book)
. Mare and Farley are great as sorta sister-figures. Mare and Cameron get some sorely-needed bonding time (in, like, the last 10% of the book. Cameron was irritating for the first 90%). Mare and Kilorn are very sweet (well, y'know, as sweet as two bickering besties can be)
The politics, factions, etc were fairly well done, although I'd have to analyze in more detail to be sure lol

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mbrogs2024's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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micaelamariem's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

This was such a let down from how much I enjoyed the rest of the series. The majority of the book is Mare being trapped in a room and just wallowing about it, which was incredibly boring.
I didn’t think her torture was as dramatic as it should’ve been.
The twist towards the middle and end was interesting but it needed more. As it stands, this book did not need to be 500 pages.
Also wtf was that weird bathroom scene

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hollymileham's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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

best thing about this book is how im scamming amazon to read it

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wrappingpaper's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny slow-paced

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

3.5

I flew through about 75% of this book, took a break for a few months and found it pretty difficult to get stuck back into. Overall I feel like the plot really carries this book, not the writing or characters. Mare is less annoying but I didn’t really like the ending and her reaction in it.
I did however enjoy the multiple povs to get a break from constant Mare and an insight into other characters.
In general I feel like this book could’ve told the same story in a lot less pages so I’m slightly worried for War Storm bc imo as these books get bulkier the pace slows down.
Overall I still enjoyed this book, still gonna finish the series (at some point) , just didn’t enjoy it that much compared to the first books. I have hopes it’ll pick up again tho.
I still recommend this series to people who are into dystopian ya fantasy politics all that stuff.
A lot of gore, murder and mentions of trauma/ptsd tho so don’t read if you’re sensitive to that 👍

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ameydireads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious relaxing sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

"He caught me back then, ensnaring me in a prince's trap. Now I'm in a king's cage. But so is he. My chains are Silent Stone. His is the crown."

As Mare has been kept as a prisoner, there is not a lot that she can do. So the first part of the story felt very slow. But actually a lot of things were happening in the background. Sometimes doing nothing is just as powerful as actively trying to fight your enemy. Slowly we see the cracks in Maven’s court and how he is struggling to keep his crown. He makes new alliances and breaks his promises, much to his court’s annoyances. After all, he is just a lonely boy trying to survive and that scares the shit out of him. The only thing we can really count on in this world is Maven’s obsession with Mare.

But Mare doesn’t see that she also has a weakness for Maven.
“In spite of myself, I feel the familiar longing for a boy who does not exist.”

I mean, it has become boring by now. He showed you who he really is and still she goes on and on about who you thought he was.
“How many times does one wicked boy have to betray you people before you learn?”

Even though the book started a bit slow, near the end it got very exciting. I think it portrayed the changing dynamics well.

I was shocked to see how it ended with Cal and Mare!! At this point I don’t see how they will ever get back together, but I do hope so…

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ale24's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

This isn’t a popular opinion, but I actually liked this book more than the previous two books. It might be because it was finally warm enough to go outside to read, so I had a better time reading. However, I also feel like the action scenes in this series weren’t well written and/or just plain boring, and

Mare spent the majority of this book unable to use her special abilities. Which I think did a good job at keeping action scenes to a minimum and grow her character in this particular book. Plus I don’t really love her character so I didn’t mind seeing her go through a tough time (don’t judge me lol)

Maven seems like an interesting character and I was excited to see his character develop,

“Maven Calore is not his own self. He told me as much. He is a construct, a machine, soulless and lost”

but imo the author might have a small issue of telling over showing (I’ll admit that I think Maven and Evangeline are mostly written alright; They just are a little cheesy at times).

Edit: I wrote the following before I read the next book (which fixed a couple issues and questions I had with King’s Cage), although I don’t feel some of it is true anymore I don’t want to get rid of it since it’s what I felt at the time. Just keep in mind that some of my opinions change in the following book, War Storm.

Credit where credit’s due,

I liked that the author included a male bisexual (or at least a multi sexual person) with a female main love interest and a potential lesbian (her only love interest is a woman so I can’t be sure, the author doesn’t say their sexualities explicitly) since authors usually default to including one gay guy to their books when adding LGBTQ+ characters (in my experience). The only thing is that these characters, as much as I like them, are some of the main antagonists in the book series. This is reminiscent of a pretty negative trope, although I suspect one of them may go through a redemption arc in the next book. While homophobia is not directly referenced, the coded lesbian character is unable to marry her love and has her brother marry her girlfriend instead so that they can still stay with each other. I’m not sure I like this because the above situation resembles someone living in a homophobic society, meanwhile the text stays somewhat vague about how sexuality is thought of or treated in general. According to her character, her parents treat her surprisingly well despite not allowing her to marry a woman. Even so, when I was reading it I wondered if the reason they had to have heterosexual marriages (it’s unclear if that’s the case for everyone including Reds) was only so they could produce offspring and not exactly for homophobic reasons. This leaves me conflicted because I can’t point out exactly what I don’t like about the situation, I just wish the book was more explicit in what it was trying to do.

There are many diverse characters, although I get the impression this is set in a color blind setting as there’s no mention or indication of racism. There’s also little mention of sexism or homophobia. Which some people may like or find it unrealistic/not well done (since the princess trials I still don’t know if they live in patriarchy because I guess they could still have a male version of that technically?).

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julienicole1106's review against another edition

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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? It's complicated

4.0

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kingspite618's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

5.0

man do I enjoy seeing a bunch of fucked up insane and incredibly mentally ill teenagers and young adults make a bunch of incredibly problematic and questionable choices repeatedly like their lives depended on it for a whole series straight!!
5 stars cause everyone ate and slayed and delivered and served cunt. also relate to some of these characters on a spiritual level. they are just like me fr. also YASS

evil queer villains/spoiler> we love to see it!!
The character developments and arcs and overall construction of the characters is also incredible. Go read it right now!!!

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