Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

The Girl in The Tower by Katherine Arden

42 reviews

riccii's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

WOW. This book should come with some hefty warnings but the payoff at the end?? Wow. Just. Wow.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing, Blood, and Misogyny

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Violence, Sexual harassment, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Grief, and Confinement

Minor: Pregnancy and Slavery

ktkeps's review

adventurous emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Slavery

mandeeson's review

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Child death, and Miscarriage

mmefish's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name.

This one... isn't as great as "The Bear And the Nightingale".

I still love Katherine Arden's writing and the way she shapes her characters but this book feels way less... mature? The beginning is fine and the middle section is great (I was anxious the whole time) but the ending felt rushed, unnecessary and trope-ish.

What I mean by unnecessary is, for example, this:
-

did the traitor really need to be Koschei the Deathless? It didn't serve any purpose rather than to connect Vasya to him, which wasn't needed. His character was good enough as a human and his evilness became a little caricaturish as well.

-

what was the point of  incorporating Olga's pregnancy and killing her unborn baby? Just...why? I think Vasya had enough of courage and determination without it.

-

romance with Morozko. Not necessary and could easily be written as strong friendship/platonic relationship. She's about 16 years old and is often referred to as "child", so it's kinda icky.

And by tropes I mean: Vasya is special, "plain" (so many time it's mentioned that she's ugly and not a beauty, we get it), everyone falls in love with her; Vasya is good/better at whatever; lack of communication, specifically people starting telling something and just... deciding not to (I hate it so much); the "twist" (

"the villain was one of us all along"

), the easy escape at the very end,

teenage girl in love with ancient being

etc. 
It read a little bit too much like YA.

Also, I'm really sick of

Vasya getting sexually harassed/assaulted.

I understand why Katherine Arden writes it but I dislike it nonetheless. 

Overall, "The Girl in the Tower" is definitely not terrible but still feels like a letdown after such a strong first book.
_______________

Edit: decided not to finish the series.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Blood, and Sexism

Moderate: Gore, Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Kidnapping, and Violence

Minor: Animal death, Vomit, Slavery, and Rape

micallab's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: War and Fire/Fire injury

maximauve's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring tense fast-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Sexism, Pregnancy, Child death, Sexual harassment, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Infertility

saintyeehaw's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

4.0

This was kind of a slog to get through from the beginning to middle, but once it started picking up toward the end I was hooked into the series once again so I will continue to the final book.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Outing, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Murder, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, Trafficking, Violence, and Religious bigotry

emfass's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Miscarriage, and Child death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Vomit

maeverose's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

This one is equally as good as the first book to me, maybe even better. I liked it for all the same reasons I liked the first book; atmosphere, setting, writing, realistic characters, the interweaving of the folklore into the story, plus it has one of my favorite tropes (female character has to disguise herself as a man), and Vasya actually leaves her home to explore different towns/cities, including Moscow, and gets to be a badass (albeit pretty naive at times, but what do you expect from someone who's never left her very small town in the middle of nowhere until now?). I really grew to like Sasha in this book, despite him being a bit of an idiot sometimes

(like why are you focused on your sister 'sinning' by dressing as a man when she just saved several kids LIVES?)

The main antagonist was very predictable, not sure if he was supposed to be or not... but I didn't feel it took away from my enjoyment of the story at all.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Religious bigotry, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Death, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, and Violence

Minor: War

stillbirth

sarahaf712's review against another edition

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Animal cruelty, Adult/minor relationship, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Pregnancy, Slavery, Blood, Child death, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Grief, Sexism, Violence, and War

Moderate: Bullying, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, and Sexual harassment

Content warning: birth; stillbirth