Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

96 reviews

katymat18's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.5

I’m truly at a loss for words. That ending has me spiraling, yet again. I enjoyed a majority of this book but I do feel it was slow to get going, and then the ending was all action packed. But even being slow I still think everything was necessary. Excited for the next installment! I have so many questions and curiosities now that I just need some damn answers! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death of parent, Torture, and War

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, and Chronic illness

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders

carriepond's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

3.75

This series blew up so big this year that I am not sure anyone needs to hear a review from me (not that anyone needs to hear a review from me about any book, haha), but here are a few thoughts: 

This still had a lot of what hooked me in the first book (dragons, cool powers from dragons, lightning orgasms, and dragons) and had the same things that (for me) were mediocre but that I was willing to ignore because overall I was still having fun (like, the writing is not great sometimes and her world-building is meh, though I am holding out hope that some of the largest holes/issues are fleshed out in the next book in the series). 

I got tired of hearing Violet complain about Xaden's dishonesty: the length of time she had beef while simultaneously acknowledging and understanding his motives started to feel unbelievable and seemed drawn out for an uneccessarily long time just so there would be an obstacle for them to overcome. 

But, y'all, the dragons above all else continue to have my heart-- I love them even more in this book. And despite rolling my eyes about various aspects of the book, I was turning the pages, gasping out loud, getting excited, and into it just the same. I also scoured the internet to watch videos of other people talking about this book after I finished and plan to read the next one, so I, yeah, continue to be into it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, Death of parent, and War

Moderate: Sexual content and Chronic illness

barda's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

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

1.75

I wasn't the biggest fan of the first book, but this one is even worse.

The one positive is that I still do like the dragons, and find them to be much more compelling than any of the human characters. However, they're still not very fleshed out (especially Adarna), and I genuinely can't tell if that's because the author is trying to create an air of mystery about them that will be solved in later books, or if she's having trouble figuring out dragon culture and characterisation.

I feel that encompasses the main flaw of this book - that the author is making everything up as she goes along. This would explain the paper-thin worldbuilding (with country names and towns being thrown around without any context), inconsistent use of magic (where did all of this rune magic come from????), and exceedingly silly plot twists (the whole

Jack coming back to life

plot made no sense in-universe). 

I also felt like I didn't care about the characters. She kills off a lot of characters, which normally would be fine (and if done properly, like in A Song of Ice and Fire, can make a book feel more compelling and thrilling), but I didn't feel any emotional connection to any of the characters killed off (and apart from Liam, it seems like Violet didn't either). The romance between Violet and Xaden is also very mediocre, with lots of unnecessary drama created between them just from a lack of communication. 

I rated the first book a higher rating as, even though it had the same problems as this one, it was more entertaining; I found this book to be 200 pages too long, with a lot of it dragging in the middle. 

In short, it's just not very good, even with the dragons. I would happily just take a book about the dragons and forget about all the human characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: War, Blood, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Cursing, Confinement, Death, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Vomit

grayb14's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Torture, Chronic illness, War, Confinement, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Ableism and Fire/Fire injury

kaileet's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Kidnapping, Torture, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Physical abuse, War, Death, Death of parent, Sexual content, and Violence

the_true_monroe's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, War, Confinement, Death of parent, Torture, Grief, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Chronic illness, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, and Ableism

Minor: Abandonment

cascadienne's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Gore, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Confinement, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Chronic illness

wpapnik's review against another edition

adventurous 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Chronic illness, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death, War, and Murder

Moderate: Physical abuse, Confinement, and Torture

Minor: Death of parent

grace_b_3's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.0

I thought Fourth Wing was a fun read, even if some parts of it were stupid (for example, I didn’t realize that no one was using saddles on their dragons for 12+ hour long flights until a big deal was made of Violet’s saddle), and it was fastly-paced enough to keep you turning pages. So going into Iron Flame, I was expecting a fun popcorn book that had some dumb elements for me to hand-wave away. 

At the beginning of this book, I was less than impressed because

they return to the school instead of sticking with the rebellion. I also thought the Brennen issue needed to be dealt with more, and him lying about being dead just ended up seeming like not that big of a deal.

The beginning of this book just felt like treading water, where nothing really changes. Things happen, sure, and the chapters follow a similar formula of introducing a conflict and then resolving it, so it’s hard to get invested as most of what’s happening feels pointless. 

About halfway though the book, after a major shift, things started picking up, and I was honestly really enjoying it. There was plot momentum, fun new lore being revealed, etc. This was everything I was expecting (and wanting) from this book. 

However, the book lost me in the last 50 or so pages, with some truly irritating choices:

Andarna being a super special secret kind of dragon, and Xaden turning venin.

Will I still read the next book in the series? Probably, but I am lowering my expectations.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Torture

Moderate: Chronic illness, War, Death of parent, Murder, and Sexual content

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

widgetknits's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Kidnapping, War, Animal death, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Bullying, Fire/Fire injury, Chronic illness, Blood, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence