Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

95 reviews

katy_bee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-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

3.75

I've raced through this series, rather like a mawmouth. I've seen in other reviews that there are issues with the writing style- lots of telling rather than showing- and I agreed. The chosen one trope is very much present so if that's not your thing, beware. But I just really enjoyed them. I got swept up in the world and El's journey. The first half was definitely more page turning. Things slowed a little in the middle but I wanted to see what happened to the characters and have the mystery of the enclave attacks solved and it all came together very satisfyingly. 

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firefenix14's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

LOVE this trilogy!!! This is the second time I've read through this series, first time was early 2023. I blew through these because I love the world and the story. El has so much going on, and the number of shifts and turns in this is amazing and captivating. There are definitely some slower moments within her internal dialogue incorporating more world building/history that I felt were unnecessary, but overall I really loved this series. Something is great about a bitter main character that begrudgingly does the right thing even though it is insanely hard. She never takes the easy way out, that's for sure.
Everything about Orion and what he is, the way her mum tried to heal him, and the resolution between El and Deepthi Sharma was really well written. The emotional conclusion of that felt really satisfying, and her granddad threatening to leave the house/estate was a great show of his real love for Arjun, El, and her mom.

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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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dark emotional 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

5.0

What the hell, Novik did it again.

I was getting really frustrated with the first half of the book. At least three times, a character would say a couple of sentences and then El would explain a ton of inferred details to us for several pages. We had some important plot threads established, and pages were ticking by with no progress being made on them. El spent a lot of time not doing a damn thing, thinking for pages about how she didn't know what to do. There was a decent chunk spent on her wanting to accomplish something I thought was extremely stupid and didn't understand her motives - and then, at almost the 50% mark, the chess pieces were finally all on the board and the game began.

I kept saying to myself "there's no way she can solve [plot thread] in [pages left]" and then she DID over and over again until I had every answer I wanted. I actually want to go back and reread the prior two books knowing what I know now, because the reveals in this book were set up long before she started drafting it, there's just no way. It is a little bit of a spoiler to say this, so just skip over it, but watching El walk away from Omelas made me cry. In this present moment of multiple genocides and an ongoing, stubbornly-ignored pandemic, it hit me just right. "You got us all out for good, and they're trying to start a war over the bones. There's a better way. We know there's a better way. And you're trying to find it." 

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ivi_reads_books's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A brilliant ending for this trilogy. Full of twists and turns that I did not see coming. We finally learn how the Scholomance came about.
The book explores themes such as balance, destiny, friendship and fairness

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ladypalutena's review against another edition

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dark 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

4.0

I was correct in my assessment of the first book: by blowing it up from a duology to a trilogy, I feel like there's a lot that could have been trimmed down. I don't think she could have ever put it back to a duology (unless you did two 500 page books), but the story here didn't end up being as satisfying as I wanted. 

This is mainly for the following reason:
After two books dealing with mals, and two books of El describing what it's like to take down a maw-mouth, it turns out that in order to create an Enclave, you have to sacrifice someone and turn them into a maw-mouth. So when you destroy a maw-mouth, you're destroying an Enclave somewhere else in the world.
 

The last hundred or so pages of this book, much like the last hundred or so pages of The Last Graduate, shoves everything in it. It's like the previous three hundred pages barely mattered: the entirety of the conflict happens in the final few pages.
Like, I was expecting some sort of final battle between her and Maw-Mouth Orion, but what ends up happening is she simply holds his hands and tells him that he's already dead, then it takes literally hundreds of people to stop everything from collapsing in on himself and then somehow Orion still survives?


I did really enjoy this series. I enjoyed the magic system, I enjoyed Novik's writing, and I enjoyed the characters that weren't El (which makes me wish for some sort of spin-off for Aadhya or Liu). 

Speaking of other characters, while El is busy mourning Orion's death (or at the very least, still planning on going back to the Scholomance to kill Patience and put Orion out of his misery),
she ends up banging Liesel?
This relationship seems to come out of nowhere to me - it's not even remotely hinted at in the last book, and then suddenly they're alone together and El thinks the only thing she can do to feel anything is to jump in bed together? It left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess technically, yes, she thinks Orion is dead so she's not cheating on him, but really? The kid hasn't even been dead for two weeks yet? 

All together, I enjoyed the series, and I'd definitely read it again, and try to read it while knowing what I know now about the Enclaves and how everything ends up. It's just not the story I was expecting. 

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illegalitch's review against another edition

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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

This one got me.  I teared up at a couple scenes.  Getting an emotional reaction is one thing, but for that emotional to manifest physically with tears in my eyes... that another level.  And the big secret!  I was NOT expecting that.  It's not very often a story can surprise me or leave me guessing.  Half of the time, when they do, it's because the big surprise is just so far out there that it doesn't make sense.   This book does not fall into that category.  The big surprise flows so well with the story that I'm almost kicking myself for not seeing it in the earlier books!  Which means this book (and series) is an automatic 5-star rating.

Well paced, especially for an anti-hero story written in First Person.  I read the first book itself and listened to the second two audiobooks because I couldn't wait to finish the story, I had to know what was next.  The narrator was perfect!  Naomi Novik definitely earned a spot on my Favorite Authors list with this series and I cannot wait to read more of their work.

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beccaand's review against another edition

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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

4.5


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tiffanne11's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful tense fast-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

The twists and turns. Even when I thought I knew what was coming, it came in a different way than expected. 
This series was so incredibly good. 

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doahdancer's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense fast-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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danicakvcs's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

4.5


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