Reviews tagging 'Child death'

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

66 reviews

mice_are_nice'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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, War, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, and Kidnapping

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Animal cruelty, and Adult/minor relationship

lmfry's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, War, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Infidelity, Death of parent, Classism, Animal death, and Mental illness

Minor: Alcohol

readandfindout's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

4.0

Style/writing: 4 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Plot: 3.5 stars stars
Worldbuilding: 4 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Child death, Infidelity, Violence, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, War, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Murder

Moderate: Religious bigotry and Animal death

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, and Cannibalism

shottel's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.75

A Day of Fallen Night is an improvement over The Priory of the Orange Tree in nearly every way. It would take a long time to enumerate all the positive changes, but a few in short: The pacing is better, the diversity is better, the appeal to modern audiences is better, the feminist themes are clearer, and even the cover art is better! Priory's Eastern branch lagged, but the branches are deftly balanced in Fallen Night. The book remediates Priory's odd penchant for mostly only mentioning the skin type of white characters, and features a significant number of LGBT+ (every letter of the acronym! and then some!) main and secondary characters. It draws on contemporary writing trends from other adult-genre books and, seemingly, fanfiction ("It's too cold, we have to cuddle for warmth") to excellent effect. And women's issues, most notably issues of pregnancy and birth, feature far more prominently, with the noble requirement to sustain a bloodline playing a role throughout the book.

This mandate to procreate establishes this book as far more clearly feminist (the idea that women have issues, interests, and stories worth hearing as much as men do) than its sequel. The need for nobility to sustain itself through childbirth is a recurring, central issue of the book, among other issues which concern women more than they do men, which also make frequent appearances.

In some ways, this book feels like it was written to an audience that might be into medieval court drama or epic adventures, but aren't too fond of the biases that pervade those genres. It is a grand epic, fantastically wrote, including women, LGBT+ characters, and people of color as equals to men, cishet, and white characters.

There are only a few places where it falters. The biggest problem I had is that the action scenes are confusing. I found myself frequently struggling to imagine the scene, re-reading portions over and over again. At first I thought it was a me issue, but after a half-dozen or so times, I figured it's probably not a me problem.

Additionally, I flagged two more minor concerns. First, with the presence of so many LGBT+ characters, the lack of transfeminine characters stands out oddly. Perhaps one or both of the nonbinary characters in the book are intended to be transfeminine, but there is no way to know this from the text. I don't make any guesses as to why; it just sits weirdly. Secondly, while *Priory* is a truly self-contained work, *Fallen Night* hints at an intention to write another book set between the two. This is the only change which I find to be a step backwards from *Priory*.

When layered inside an over 800 page grand adventure, these issues are minor, thus my score of 4.75/5. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in grand adventures, feminist fiction, fantasy, or fiction with LGBT+ main characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Sexism, Blood, Death, Violence, Grief, War, Terminal illness, Misogyny, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Kidnapping, Child death, Infertility, Body horror, Gore, Emotional abuse, Torture, Miscarriage, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Cannibalism, Abortion, and Animal cruelty

krisawesome's review against another edition

3.5

I liked the world building better in this prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree, and I thought the multiple storylines were better balanced here too. Although some of those storylines proved to be more emotional for postpartum me than I had anticipated… I’d actually started reading this book while I was still pregnant but wow was I not prepared for the extra feelings I’d have as a new mom about some of the themes.

Pacing is still kind of all over the place though, with the first part being too slow and the ending too fast.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: War, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Pregnancy

hannahpings's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? No

4.5

my god i fell in love with this book and these people and this world. i never wanted it to end and i'm so sad it did. every single one (not an exaggeration!) of its characters had significant depth and nuance, and felt authentic in a way i wasn't necessarily expecting. i'm not going to be able to forget about any of them any time soon, and i wouldn't want to. it's also seeped in the lore and complex politics that i was craving after its predecessor. 

i also loved priory––i think it was fantastic––but for me, there's been a marked improvement in samantha shannon's writing between the two. a day of fallen night gives itself time to breathe, has pitch-perfect pacing, and doesn't fall prey to the same "and then all this happened btw and now we're here" telling-not-showing issue that priory does.

this book made me feel a way i haven't felt in 20 years at least. i truly cannot wait to read all 868 pages again

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Child death, Religious bigotry, War, Gaslighting, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical content, Toxic friendship, and Violence

Moderate: Cancer, Suicide, Vomit, and Adult/minor relationship

tinybluepixel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Child death, Pregnancy, Body horror, Grief, Gore, Murder, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Infertility and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Suicide

bleepbloop's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

4.5

really good! VERY closely follows the general plot, world and characters of a song of ice and fire but if it were feminist

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, War, and Death

Moderate: Xenophobia

Minor: Suicide and Adult/minor relationship

sehenry20's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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: Violence, Murder, Kidnapping, Death of parent, War, Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

quechaya's review against another edition

• 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

This book is way better than Priory, and it's not even close.
I remember reaching a part in this book where I thought "oh no, this is where the bad things start happening to them" and realizing in that moment how expertly the author made me care for these characters. I haven't connected so strongly with book characters in a very long time. Every time the POV changed, I was left wanting more, but the next POV would instantly pull me in. I will remember these characters for a very long time.
I have two critiques. The first is that

humans vs wyverns is just not that interesting to read over and over and over, with every POV character, so some of the battle scenes toward the end felt repetitive. Conflicts between humans are much more interesting.

The second is:

the author knows what we want, but gave us an ambiguous ending for one of the lesbian pairs anyway?? GIVE US WHAT WE WANT. WE ARE STARVING.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Violence, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, War, and Death