Reviews tagging 'War'

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas

66 reviews

infusionofviolets's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious 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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Grief, and War

Minor: Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, and Emotional abuse

liesthemoontells's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A welcome disruption to the drawn out repetition of the previous book. The worldbuilding of a new civilisation and continent injects some variety into the series, although at times I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief at the glowing descriptions of the khaganate's empire and political structure. 

While I don't know if Chaol *needed* a redemption arc, this book executes one remarkably well for a character who was so insufferable in earlier . 

While this book at times felt like it is just moving the chess pieces into place for the finale, it also includes some delicious twists and revelations to be explored in the next book.

I took half a star off for the overuse of classic Maas phrases such as "eyes lined with silver" and characters saying something "too softly" - girl needs to pick up a thesaurus.

PS: lampshading the irony of me accusing Maas of needing to pick up a thesaurus when I use the word "book" five times in four paragraphs

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Genocide, Gore, Blood, Drug use, Grief, Chronic illness, Dysphoria, Colonisation, Death, Sexual content, Body horror, Child death, Classism, Violence, and War

Moderate: Medical trauma, Racism, Infertility, and Medical content

dalek_caan's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I liked this book more than I expected to considering I went into it kind of indifferent about Chaol. Still glad I did the tandem read. Definitely worth it for the way both books wrapped up nicely together and actually finishing with this book was definitely better. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Suicidal thoughts, War, Blood, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Misogyny, and Pregnancy

hollymileham's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional slow-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

was a bit unsure on what to rate this bc 3 stars felt too harsh but 4 feels a bit extreme for me, the overall reading experience was really positive but i just found myself always wanting to go back to empire of storm because i found it a lot more interesting, i think the focus on less storylines compared in this one made it feel a bit slow paced, and though i did enjoy this book for what it had to offer it think it would have been more interesting interwoven into empire of storms rather than doing it as a tandem read. things i did really like about this book was yrene, chaols character development and how everything in the tog is linked that's something i really appreciated finding out about, the plots twists were really good too. but i do think this book was maybe just a bit too much world building for my liking tho i do think it was a good story

ps why were there so many spiders in this. literally traumatising 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, War, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Blood and Grief

noetical's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Violence, Torture, Vomit, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, War, Blood, Medical trauma, Murder, Death, and Sexual content

kal517'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
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, War, and Death

Moderate: Grief, Violence, Pregnancy, Ableism, and Murder

Minor: Sexual content and Vomit

undecidedpersonality's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Death, Gore, Murder, Vomit, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, War, Body horror, Medical trauma, and Blood

Moderate: Pregnancy, Sexual content, Colonisation, Alcohol, and Genocide

Minor: Classism, Drug use, Slavery, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Ableism, Animal cruelty, and Confinement

smilagros's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

3.5✨ 
I know I may be a minority in this but I was honestly disappointed. I lost all respect for Chaol after a certain situation and how he treated/ reacted. I think this book should have been split up in novellas like assassins blade. I felt that this was too long. It was a whole lot of nothing. Also, WHERE IS CHAOL’S REDEMPTION ARC?!??! Because the ending pissed me off and just had me rolling my eyes

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, War, and Violence

annamary54's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.0

If I didn’t do this as a tandem read with Empire of Storms, I think this would’ve been more of a 3.75 ⭐️ read. Having the action of EOS really helped move this plot along. I’ve never been a big Chaol fan, but the development in this book is INCREDIBLE. I actually started to like him towards the end. I really enjoyed Nesryns journey especially because it brought more action to the book. The world building in this series is CRAZY, SJM you are amazing! My head is exploding at the last 50 pgs of every book. Could’ve done with out the explanation of their HVAC system for like two chapters in the beginning, but I understand why that point was really made at the end. Overall this was a very good character building story, I am glad I did the tandem read, otherwise I probably would have been a little bored at times. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gore, Drug use, Grief, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Murder, Medical content, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Violence, Vomit, Blood, Body horror, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: War and Sexual assault

jessikarose's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death, Murder, Animal death, War, Blood, Pregnancy, Violence, and Gore