Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Paladin's Hope

Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher

30 reviews

wardenred's review

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adventurous emotional 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? Yes

3.0

I hurt you terribly because I was trying not to hurt you terribly. Can you forgive me?

Somehow, I expected to like this book more than book 2 and at least as much as book 1. Possibly because I loved Piper so much when he appeared in Paladin's Grace and I really wanted to see more of him. Well, in this regard, at least, I wasn't disappointed; Piper's been awesome all along. I really enjoyed his dry wit and his outlook on life.

However, the story at large was somewhat... unsatisfactory. While Piper was awesome, I can't say the same about Galen. He was fun and familiar in the first half of the story, but then he just started reverting deeper and deeper into the one-dimensional "I am very dangerous, woe is me" state and became the embodiment of "break their heart in order to save them" trope, except Piper didn't need saving and it was just all very frustrating. I mean, this is a T. Kingfisher book about traumatized paladins, I except a lot of pining and wallowing and worrying about not being good for each other! But it was just so heavy-handed here, and it didn't feel completely organic for this character. I'm not saying I didn't think Galen would wallow and worry, but I just... expected him to do it differently? Idk.

The non-romance part was somewhat disappointing, as well. I expected a mystery with some adventure. Instead, most of the book was devoted to an escape room quest. Yes, there were some great moments, some amazing banter, some quirky worldbuilding, but for the most part... Eh. Meh.

Despite all that, the cliffhanger it ended on basically guarantees that I will continue with the series. It was nice to see Stephen again, among other characters, and to delve deeper into the gnolls' culture. And I really can't disagree with the book's stance on cops... er, guards.

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espiargrant's review

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adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.75

I really should've loved this book, but instead, I found it very disappointing. My favorite part of this book was the world, which was well-crafted and complex, with an interesting religion and minor magical elements. This in conjunction with a murder mystery story arc, lends to a setup for a great novel. However, the book didn't really follow through regarding the mystery element due to the 'Who' and 'How' of it being revealed almost immediately and the killer being

neutralized almost immediately, once the opportunity arose.

But in my opinion, the biggest disappointment of this book was the romance, of which I will enter even more spoilery territory:

Although both Galen and Piper were quite loveable at first glance, they eventually came across as quite flat and their connection was shallow. Both of their desperate need to sacrifice themself to save the other seemed to stem more from the fact the other was hot, as opposed to genuine mutual affection. The self-sacrifice also got quite repetitive, and did nothing to further either the plot or their character development. But what ticked me off the most about the romance was the sexual component. By Ch. 3, I was able to tell who the "Top" and the "Bottom" was going to be, not because the writing clearly shows what these characters prefer, but because they fit so neatly into heteronormative stereotypes. And what's worse is that they both somehow telepathically knew who was going to take which role, rather than having a conversation about what they each like. Lastly, for a book that spent so much time having these MCs fixate on how much they want to bang, I was incredibly confused that the 2 love scenes that were in this book were largely F-T-B (the 2nd moreso than the 1st). It just seemed like such a waste to listen to MCs long for eachother's bodies just to skip over the parts where they actually hookup.

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notthatlibrarian's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny fast-paced

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

4.0

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wickedgrumpy's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

Hot emo paladin ✅
Cute lich doctor ✅
Unexplained murders ✅
Pining ✅

Since the smooth men were no longer an issue, this book felt like it was lacking some of the depth from the previous two installments. I did thoroughly enjoy it, especially learning more about gnoles. Also the allusion to the ancients possibly being from our current timeline (the fabric that melted instead of burning i.e. possibly polyester) was really subtle. I'm not sure what that means for the overall history of the ancients and their fallen empire/death traps.

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bookwyrmknits's review

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adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I really enjoyed this book, in large part because I loved all the characters. (Though most especially the gnoles. I have loved all the gnole characters in Kingfisher's books set in this universe.) I also enjoyed the look into the world of the ancients that we got, even if the maze itself felt like something out of a horror novel. (Note: this book is firmly in the fantasy camp, and does not veer even close to the horror genre. There is, however, a lot of mention of corpses, since one of the main characters is the fantasy equivalent of a coroner.)

The plot was enjoyable, even if there were no real surprises in how it played out. The fantasy part of the plot worked the way I had expected it to. Though there were a couple of complications I had not expected (which I'm not going to go into because they happen later in the book and therefore are spoilers) but once the brief surprise was over, they still went according to my expectations.

The romance part of the plot was not a surprise either. However, it didn't need to be. I picked up a romance novel because I wanted the two main characters to discover their interest in each other, have a brief romantic interlude, then have a period where they separated for all the wrong reasons, and then kiss and make up. That's what I wanted, and that's what I got.

I am very glad to know that there are more books coming in this series, and I am incredibly excited to see what's next after the last line in this book.

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