Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

47 reviews

smithreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Grief, Violence, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Classism, Drug use, Gore, Kidnapping, War, and Sexual content

Moderate: Murder and Death of parent

Minor: Homophobia

gowlstick's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

I had this on pre-order and was incredibly excited to finally get to it! It wraps up the trilogy in such a satisfying way that I didn't predict. It was exciting to have the characters finally out of the Scholomance and in the real world; there is a lot of cross continental travel. The only thing that really bothered me was how the travel time was handled, lots of the events in the book are high stakes situations for the characters so just having blank bits of travel was a bit jarring sometimes. This also gave a pretty fast paced non-stop feel to their actions at the same time.

I was pretty tickled when I got to the section where we discover that Orion is a mawmouth, I'd pretty much just been describing the series to a friend and said something along the lines of "he's like a human mawmouth" - and I still felt a bit of a surprise when it was officially droppped.

I think it follows the other two books incredibly well. I's very different but they all feel relatively even in terms of quality to me unlike what can happen with other trilogies. I hope that the series becomes bigger in name and carves itself out a spot in newer fantasy must-reads.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Gore

Moderate: Classism, Child death, Death of parent, and Death

Minor: Grief, Colonisation, Confinement, and Alcohol

uranaishi's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Grief

Moderate: Abandonment, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Death, Drug use, Sexual content, Vomit, Violence, Death of parent, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, and War

Minor: Blood, Confinement, Dementia, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Homophobia, Racism, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

emmahe's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Too rushed for the third book of such an incredible trilogy. Would have been better split into two books. Expanding the world and lore so rapidly meant things were lost and confusing. Could have been just as impactful splitting and expanding on history, background, character, etc. 

It’s still a great series but I think this was a worse ending than the first two books deserved. That being said, it’s still far better than a lot of stories I’ve read. I hope i’m in the minority and Id still recommend people read it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Child death

Moderate: Grief, Child abuse, Violence, War, Torture, Murder, and Death of parent

schnaucl's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful fast-paced

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

4.75

Naomi Novak absolutely nailed the ending. 

I loved the reveal about how the larger Enclaves (and portals) were formed and the discussion about how easy it is to do horrible things if you just refuse to really look at what you're doing.  And how terribly realistic it was that people will continue to do the horrible thing because it takes less effort, especially if you can distance yourself from it in some way.  We're not creating more maw-mouths, we're just selling the know how to other people  and binding them to silence as part of the price.

I also loved the twist on Deepthi's prophecy, and the glimpse into how much it cost her.

It was also really nice to see El's classmates showing up for her.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Torture, Death, and Grief

Minor: Death of parent, Sexual content, Child death, and Violence

orla_h's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Gaslighting

Moderate: Death and Child death

Minor: Death of parent and Colonisation

fivecatsinacoat's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring medium-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

4.5

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced review copy.

When I tell you I gasped and had to close my kindle 60% through....

I very much enjoyed this final installment of the Scholomance trilogy. I was concerned the final book wouldn't live up to the others as it's not set in the Scholomance, but it was a fun adventure! The Golden Enclaves was quite different than the prior two, and the world-building wasn't quite as precise, but that didn't distract from my enjoyment of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Classism, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Violence, War, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Bullying