Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Siege and Storm

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

52 reviews

saj04's review against another edition

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adventurous sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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cherru's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

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

3.75

This book gave me so many feelings. At the end I was so mad that it took such a turn, and not in a good way but in a bad…

There were like one or two big reveals which you could guess pretty early on.

One of them was Sturmhound’s identity and the other was about the twins being part of something more…

The pacing of the book is so much different than the first book. The first had such a good world building and it was action packed. This one had around 35% into the book some of action and then it was until almost the very end full with Alina’s thoughts. And no, they aren’t interesting at all and I didn’t care. This is so much slower than the first book, but in a bad way.

I stopped caring for Alina and Mal. Alina keeps changing her mind and has become such a dislikeable person. First she feels strong and feels the power and then suddenly she says that people put too much faith in her and that she can’t change anything. She keeps going from feeling strong to feeling weak and nothing special. That made me so mad. Also the author made her power hungry, which changed my perspective on her and changed the dynamics of the relationships.

She even wanted to harm people more than once… is it because of the Darkling or did she become so stupid suddenly?

Also let’s not get started on the amplifier… does it do something, because she is as weak as the beginning and she doesn’t have any power ups. She is portraying herself as feeling the power rush to her etc but at the end of the day, she still can’t do anything about everything…

Then Mal and the romance. The worst part of all.

Mal is suddenly like a baby needing all the attention from Alina and sulking when he doesn’t get any. I mean he was working all day in Novyi Zem and couldn’t see Alina that much anyway. It feels like he just hates Grisha and the rich people for no good reason. He didn’t even try to make it bearable for himself. He made his mind in the beginning that he was going to hate it and he didn’t stop hating the Little Palace. Aren’t their quarters like private and couldn’t he have slept with Alina or spend a bit of time together before her meetings? Only the twins would have known. They didn’t even try that… Suddenly they had the most cliché argument. He felt her changing and he wasn’t spending enough time with her etc and just because she flinched from his kiss he got mad and kind of broke up with her??? I would see that as a break up because not long after Mal decided to kiss Zoya and Alina saw everything. Oh and Alina almost kissed someone else too. You don’t do that if as they said “you cannot live without that person” and “he/she is my home and where I belong”. I believed that they meant those words. I thought their love was strong. But no, it was just a childish romance. Needless to say, I stopped rooting for them. I would love for Mal to just go away with Zoya and Alina doing her own things. They don’t need to be together if they can cheat so easily.

At one point Alina’s and Mal’s relationship became as toxic as the series “After (we collided)”. And I hated those books and the dynamics the couple had. This wasn’t needed at all. I feel like the author did this because she couldn’t fill the second book anyway.

If it was me, I would have made it spicier and made the relationship of Nikolai and Alina blossom in a very slow way. They would have fallen for each other in a natural way and Alina would have known that she wasn’t actually in love with Mal but just clinging on him, because he was all she had before, but not anymore.

The last thing I disliked was Sturmhound’s romance. Was it really needed? It felt really forced. Why does every single man have to have feelings for the main character… But Sturmhound as a character made the whole story more bearable. At least he didn’t act like a kid, unlike a certain protagonist and her lover…

I hope that this book is more for YA, because it’s filled with clichés that my younger self would have loved.

The only reason why I didn’t give this book a lower rating even though it deserves it, is because of Nikolai and because I like the world. It makes me biased.

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rose_88's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful tense fast-paced

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

3.0

Didn’t like this one as much as the first. I loved all the new characters and how they felt with the aftermath of the fist book, but I felt that it went way too fast, with very little descriptions of what they were doing, especially near the end, and it was more like ‘they did this and then they did this.’ Like they were rushing to get to the final battle, very repetitive of the first book where they sped through a lot of action and events to get to the final confrontation.

I really liked Mal in the fist book, but I didn’t like how he handles things in this one. I understand that he felt out of place in the Little Palace, but he was very dramatic about it and didn’t even try to talk to Alina till his rage had boiled over.

I really liked everything in the beginning on the True Sea and the ships, I really wish there had been more about Nikolai’s crew. Speaking of the crew, I really liked Tolya and Tamar, their beliefs about Alina being a Saint came out of no where for me, looking back I can see the snippets of it littered thoughout.

I ADORED Nikolai, and I thought he would have been a much better King than his brother, and was super confused as to how he would become king (I don’t know if he actually does but I hope so) and his brother’s death was just horrifying. Basically all the death and destruction from when the Darkling attacked the Palace was horrible and WTF it was mental.

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onefineelephant's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

8/10. Alina and Mal are both annoying and I don't like them but because they are so annoying, they deserve each other because neither one should be subjected onto anyone else. With that being said, I love Nikolai even if he is a little sh*t. I also really enjoy the twins. I liked how this book had more of a plot than the first one did. Also, I feel like this one was more rich and had more depth than the first one. The ending was jarring but not entirely terrible.

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genette's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

I'm torn on this book. On one hand, I absolutely hate love triangles, and this was no exception. On the other hand, I adore Nikolai and the book kept my attention.

Mal needs to pull his head out of his ass, and Alina needs to start trusting him more, otherwise that relationship is never going to work.

Forget Team Mal, Team Darkling, or Team Nikolai. I'm Team Alina Gets Her Shit Together.

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soph22's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-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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shadereads's review against another edition

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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

4.0

Content Warnings

evie_lumby's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

Absolutely amazing, but strangely heartbreaking. The plot was elaborate but easy to follow. Beautifully written and a brilliant book. Be ready for the plot twists.

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anielabooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Overall great book, but I still preferred the first one. It was very slow at first, but it really picked up towards the end. Honestly, I was not expecting that many character deaths. Some of those were a but out of pocket. However, I was really excited to meet many characters and grow some old ones. I particularly loved Tamar and Nikolai. Although I wasn’t particularly fond of Zoya, I still appreciated how Bardugo developed her character in this book. I’m excited for what is to come in the next book as I am still very much in love with the world and NIKOLAI LANTSOV. Additionally, I really appreciated the bonus Genya chapter because she was always one of my favorite characters from book 1.

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jupitermond's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

3.25

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