Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

24 reviews

thereaderkristle's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Murder, Animal death, Death of parent, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content and Body horror

Minor: Slavery and Addiction

taliatalksbooks's review

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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

3.75

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff is far more detailed than I ever anticipated. This world is robust, well thought out, and incredibly complicated in all the best ways. I wouldn’t enter this series thinking it’s going to be a quick read. This is 100% a slow fantasy burn, but it is oh so worth it. It is strategic, dark, and twisty, which you can only expect of a group of would-be assassins. Kristoff masterfully depicts the complications of religion, politics, corruption, magic, world-specific language, and overwhelming emotion, all within this first book. I’m really excited to see where this series heads in the next two novels, but this is definitely a “chapter-at-a-time” read for me. If you decide to jump in to the world of Nevernight, get ready for one of the most complicated and intricate reads you’ve ever embarked on. Truthfully, Kristoff is giving GRRM a run for his money in terms of the amount of detail packed into these pages, and if you don’t believe me, you’ll just have to check these books out for yourself. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Slavery, Blood, Death, Murder, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Torture

edu_caldelas's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Torture, Blood, Murder, and Gore

Minor: Slavery

whenjessreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.5

I loved this book, I really did. I was expecting some sort of mild YA dark academia (why did I think this? I do not know) and what I got was a punch in the face of serious fantasy. It was surprising, refreshing, and after the first 100 pages or of set up the pacing was great and the characters intriguing. 

The excessive metaphor was something I liked, although occasionally I had to read a phrase over a few times for comprehension.

The footnotes that the author used gave me flashbacks to the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud - adding humour and small infodumps via an unknown narrator. I do find them slightly jarring when trying to read a story smoothly, but if that’s the author’s style, what can you do? 😅

From what I can gather, this book is either loved or hated. The author is Australian - you can tell - and that’s pretty representative of the how the Australian personality is received in general.😅😂 This book was also pretty strong with the male gaze, although it wasn’t enough that it made me stop reading.

The one thing I will point out as being problematic is the author’s representation of Māori ta moko, or facial tattoos. Though Kristoff has said he didn’t intend for people to make that comparison, as someone of Māori heritage (though that should be irrelevant), I felt a bit uncomfortable reading it. I think without this I would have rated a 4 😊

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Cursing

Minor: Sexual assault, Suicide, Pedophilia, Cultural appropriation, Slavery, Child abuse, and Rape

katyfortner's review

adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

3.75

It took me a while to really get into this book. It started off really dingy and definitely look at the trigger warnings before reading this because it was triggering right off the bat. I do think the narration was true to what an assassin would probably have to think especially from what the MC had to face and go through at such a young age. I would say that 50% of this book was very lacking but the last half to last third of the book really made up for it. Also, I thought the footnotes were a kind of weird addition the author made.. not really sure how I feel about them, but I am leaning towards not liking them.
 

I was really gutted that the love interest, Trix got killed off. I knew there had to be a twist coming up but I was really hoping that would not have been the case. Also, I knew something was off about Ash when she kept hinting that Mia should not stay there and when the obvious antagonists kept swearing up and down that they didn't kill Lottie. I knew something was off but I really liked that Mia finally had a girl-friend and was able to connect with someone along with the relationship she started with Trix.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Rape, Child death, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Child abuse, Murder, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment

Minor: Slavery

emesfiz_28's review against another edition

challenging dark sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Blood, Cursing, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Torture, Toxic friendship, Animal death, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual content, Slavery, Death of parent, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Violence, and War

Moderate: Vomit

maddie2's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Violence, Torture, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal death, Slavery, Sexual assault, and Rape

lettigirl101's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Animal death, Sexual content, and Murder

Moderate: Slavery

Minor: Child death, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

t_l5's review

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, and Violence

Minor: Sexual violence and Slavery

oliverreeds's review

dark emotional tense 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? Yes

i didn't like the sexualization of the teenagers in this book. the writing is good; the narration is incredibly unique in a good way so the book only lost points in my book for underage kids being wayyyyy too sexualized. the book (in my opinion i haven't read the others yet) would be ultimately unchanged if the author had aged up the kids 4-7 years (or if they just didn't write an explicit sex scenes between minors)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Murder, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Bullying, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Rape, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Trafficking, and Vomit

don't read this book if you aren't cool with blood, gore, murder and death! they introduction is not joking!