Reviews with content warning for Grief - Kings Cage

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Kings Cage by Victoria Aveyard

22 reviews

emilyamoreau'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
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Good continuation of the story, this one felt marginally slower paced than the previous 2 books, but it worked for the situations in this story. This book brought the introduction of multiple narrators which was a fun addition and helpful to the story!

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tania_mybookishsecret's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-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

4.25

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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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sweetchocolatez's review against another edition

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emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

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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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aammeess's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

3.75

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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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jelkebooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

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

2.0

This book didn't work for me. It was a bit of a let down, especially with how much I like book one and two in this series. It's just that this book is way too long. For most of this book almost nothing happened in it. Everything about this book just screamed FILLER. It was quite a bore to read.
On top of that I do still think Mare is insufferable, and she definitely didn't go through any growth throughout this book either. She was so incredibly stupid in this book as well. Maven's intentions were as transparent as one could be, and Mare was still constantly in her inner monologue saying she had no clue what he was doing. On top of that she just also made some really dumb decisions. We also got a new POV this book. Cameron might have been even be worse than Mare, in my opinion. Being contrarian for contrarian sake is one of my worst pet peeve's in characters, and she just embodies that. It was obvious she was supposed to be an "edgy" character, but instead she was just incredibly annoying. Wasn't there anyone else in the Scarlett Guard we could have followed to showcase this part of the story? I mean, literally any other character could have been better.
Anyway, I do think there's some interesting world politics, and expansion going on in this book. We learn quite a bit of the world's history, and other countries as well. I thought it was really interesting, and I wanted more of that than we got. Let's hope it will play a big part in the final book.

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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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