Reviews tagging 'War'

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

129 reviews

erin1339's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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: Death of parent, War, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Blood, Child death, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Animal death

bennoyb's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Death, War, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, and Gore

bookshelfmonkey's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective 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

 This was a great expansion on the world introduced in Priory. Going into it with a basic understanding of the worldbuilding definitely helped me get into it more smoothly and, as a result, the plot picked up quite quickly. Overall, this was an exciting fantasy book with a great combination of classic fantasy elements and original content, and the characters were great.
 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, Blood, Death, Murder, and War

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, and Gore

Minor: Suicide, Torture, Cannibalism, and Rape

_gess_reads_'s review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Grief, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, War, Violence, Sexual content, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Religious bigotry and Suicide

aisabel's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Fire/Fire injury, War, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Child death, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, and Death of parent

Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Suicide, and Gore

nefariousbee's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious relaxing 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

4.75

such a gem among high fantasies. I'd like for the characters to have more distinct voices, but that's literally my only note. loved it even more than the priory 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, War, Xenophobia, Child death, Death of parent, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pregnancy, Infidelity, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Death, and Adult/minor relationship

jupitermond's review against another edition

emotional tense slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Animal death

Minor: Child death and Adult/minor relationship

malinhalia's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.75

Well-written fantasy with a clear grounding in actual medieval culture. Great world building - the religions not only have zealots but they are also believable characters acting according to their faith.

Deducting points on

clumsy enemies to lovers writing, very predictable good to evil character switch/plot twist, and some very wordy filler sections

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Child death

Moderate: Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content

Minor: War

ehmannky's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

Fabulous world building, characters, and plot. Everything you want from a brick of epic fantasy. I loved the look at what duty and devotion to country/the collective means for each of these characters, and what it means to escape the oppressive parts of this cycle. Glorian needing to submit her body and womb to be part of an unending chain, Dumai trying to find a way to escape the petty politics, Tunuva balancing personal growth with her devotion to her community, Wulf struggling with the missing parts of his identity, all of it was so good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Death, Blood, Pandemic/Epidemic, War, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Religious bigotry and Xenophobia

Minor: Mental illness

snipinfool's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.25

The Day of Fallen Night is the prequel to Priory of the Orange Tree. It is the epic telling of the story of the women who helped protect their world from the dreaded monsters unleashed when the Dreadmount erupted again. 

In the South, Tunuva was a sister with secret Priory of the Orange Tree in Lasia. She trained all of her life to help defend the region from the return of the Nameless One or any other creatures which arose from the Dreadmount. It had been more than five hundred years since the Nameless One had been defeated, but the sisters remained ready to preserve and protect the Priory and Lasia.

In the East, Dumai was a godsinger who lived in the high mountains of Seiiki and helped tend to the High Temple of Kwiriki. Godsingers prayed and enacted ceremonies to summon dragon gods from their lengthy rest. Dumai's life was forever changed by a visitor from her country's capital. Dumai was told she was needed at Antuma Palace and would become part of royal court. 

In the West, Sabran Berethnet was the Queen of Inys. Her ancestor defeated the Nameless One and her line's continuance kept the monster from returning. Each queen ruled and gave birth to one daughter who looked exactly like her mother. Sabran worked hard to rule her country more competently than the previous queens. She strengthened political ties with a country to the north by marrying their recently crowned king. She also convinced her new husband to convert to her country's religion, thereby strengthening those ties as well. Sabran's daughter, Glorian, would have a prosperous and politically strong country when it was her time to rule. 

Each part of the world started to notice their lands were changing. Crops were failing due to lack of rain. Hot springs would suddenly start to boil, maiming or killing those using it. Strange steaming vents and small earthquakes were reported close the area of the Dreadmount. One day, the Dreadmount erupted again and released five winged shapes into the sky. The monsters had returned.

Samantha Shannon knows how to write a richly detailed and captivating saga. I was immediately drawn into the story like I was when I read Priory of the Orange Tree. For me, it wasn't a book I could lose myself in and read for hours. There were times when I had to stop reading and reflect on the events and what the characters were doing in the book. Once the Dreadmount erupted, the story sped up. People were preparing for war. They were wondering if they would survive what flew in the sky. Would their leaders make good decisions? I felt the panic they felt. At the end, I felt some of the exhaustion they felt. This was fantasy in near perfect form.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, and Death

Moderate: Pregnancy