Reviews - Before They Are Hanged

5.15k reviews for:

Before They Are Hanged

Joe Abercrombie

4.3 AVERAGE

codyboughman's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

primordialregime's review against another edition

3.0

2.5

tylerhayes's review against another edition

4.0

The northern plotline with colonel West and the dogman was great. Incompetence, idiocy, and mishaps aplenty!
The dagkosa plotline with glokta was great. He shows up, makes thousands of lives worse, and then leaves. All to give the inquisition a fraction more influence. But somehow he is still such a lovable guy. And the mystery of what sult is up to and the deal with valint and balk, and bayaz, is all engaging.
The only issue I really have is that half of the book, with Logen, Jezal, and Ferro is a journey that is somewhat boring and mostly pointless. It's a real "the journey was about the lessons we learned along the way" type of plot. But it is the entire book for half the protagonists. It was just a little dull to me. Brings the ranking down a fair bit.

kessler2025's review against another edition

4.0

Good story, great writing, not so relatable characters, etc - basically the same things I had to say about the first book. Glotka is still the best character by far although I can't shake off the feeling that his character is the author's version of Tyrion Lannister. The resemblance would not have been bothersome if not for the fact the narrative structure is a lot like that of the ASOIAF series which in turn leads to comparison between the two series at the subconscious level. Going back to characters, I'll say I've taken a liking to Dogman and his band of followers as well who have a lot more chapters dedicated to them in this outing. The writing is top notch as usual. It rarely falters in its pace and its fluidity makes it pretty easy to dig into the story the end result being that hours are warped into minutes. Here's to hoping the final book in this trilogy ends with a bang.

jota_m's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous emotional funny fast-paced

drjust1ce's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark 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

lil_ricky's review against another edition

3.75

dark funny

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Ladisla getting what he deserves and Logen Ninefingers having the situational awareness of a bag of concrete are peak.

Generally speaking I liked this book, though I really felt the first half of the book felt completely aimless at times to the point I wasn’t sure whether I was listening to a slice of life-style story, or if there was actually something the characters were working towards. However, the second half of the book really picks up and definitely was able to draw me back in. The dark morbid tone is still very prevalent, especially when Glokta is at the focus (still the best character.)

I might come back around to this book and change my opinion, but so far I think I like The Blade Itself a bit more…