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dlrosebyh's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Well, there’s always a first in everything.
The Court of Broken Knives is unfortunately my first 1-star-read of the year. Which is so disappointing as the premise looked so promising. I love an assassin main character, but this novel was just not for me.
My first issue is the writing style. If you know me, you know that I love a good writing style. It’s like the main connection between the novel and I. The Court of Broken Knives felt like a twelve-year-old wrote this and uploaded it to Wattpad thinking it has some sort of angst. I know the author wanted it to be grippy and fast-paced, but honestly the periods every word was just killing me. And honestly, I was even shocked that Anna Smith Spark has a PhD in English literature because this felt like the first draft. You don’t need to end every chapter with “Death! Death! Death”. This isn’t 2014 Tumblr. (Her poems were ass, too.)
Secondly, I didn’t really like the characters. Honestly, all of them were annoying to me. If this novel wasn’t my cousin’s favorite book, I would’ve DNF’ed it already.
Thirdly, the world building was horrible. I appreciated the map and everything, but I was just confused throughout the entire book. Some sections of the book really did not make sense, as the world building was so weak that you feel like you’re just reading a combination of every European countries ever.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, and Murder
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, and Misogyny
hybridtulips's review
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
While I enjoyed the middle third of the book, and I like the author's way of writing, I found it a tedious read and was happy to be done with it. The constant and increasingly monotonous onslaught of gore, mindless violence, and horror eventually numbed and bored me. I would've liked to see the characters explore actual motivations, and the "plot" twists feel more and more undeserved due to witheld information.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Blood, Death of parent, Vomit, Drug use, Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Murder, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Classism, Excrement, Misogyny, Sexual assault, and Animal cruelty
It's bad, folks. Don't read this if you're queasy.
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