Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Children of Blood and Bone: Seer Edition by Tomi Adeyemi

83 reviews

merisavale's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful fast-paced

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

3.25

I thought the world was intriguing and the story satisfying but I thought the pace was too fast. There was no tension or suspense and I felt that a lot of sections could have been way more fleshed out. I wanted to hear more about the lore and there were parts where I just didn’t understand what had happened plot wise because it was so sparse. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Stunning. This book is about taking back your power and embracing your magic. It’s well-written, interesting, and powerful. The chapters are short, the characters are interesting, and the plot is exciting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

taroroot's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-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? No

4.0

what a thrilling and grim tale! i really enjoyed the fantasy elements and Zélie's entire personality in this book. she is easily my favorite character. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

asiamh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

micaelamariem's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

I’ll post a full review on my blog in the morning but omg this was a wonderful book! Based on Orisha mythology from West Africa, and inspired by the urge to fight back against police brutality of unarmed Black citizens, Tomi Adeyemi examines a fantasy world where magic users are stripped of their power and beaten down until a few characters decide they want a change, and how they can fight back against how they were taught their whole lives. Loved the character development, the world building, the important themes, and the shocking betrayals. Ends on a cliffhanger and I need the next book now! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Infidelity, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

squinnittowinit's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Edit: After thinking on this book a bit more, I've decided to lower the rating from a 3.75 to a 2. I kept trying to convince myself that this was a good story because I keenly understand the place it was written from, but beyond the bare bones of it, I don't think it actually was. I didn't enjoy the characters and I felt like the plot didn't actually make a whole lot of sense. I've decided that I will not be reading the sequel.

Original review:
Overall, this is a good story with a (unfortunately) very relatable setting: an oppressive society that treats certain people as lesser due to something inherent that they cannot control. I felt the author's pain and anger surrounding this real-world issue in the writing, and perhaps if this had been my first exposure to the mindset of the oppressed group, I might have found it more impactful. However, I personally found it a little tiring for specific reasons that I will mark as a spoiler below. 

Again, it is a good story, just one I've seen many times already. Nothing about it surprised me and as much as I was rooting for them, I didn't love any of the characters by the end. I'm not sure if you're supposed to or not.

The specific reasons I found this book to be tiring have a lot to do with the main characters. All three were naive to a fault, and retained that naivete throughout the entire book, even as their views on certain things changed. I suppose it's realistic, as they are all teenagers and teenagers are very naive, but I found it very frustrating to read about them doing impulsive and very ill-advised things over and over again and then only afterwards thinking that they might have been bad ideas. 

Next, there is the issue of trauma. This is a book based in racial trauma, which makes it automatically not a fun read for me. Again, I really want to stress that I'm not saying it's bad, but it's very real, and it's hard to laugh at any of the jokes or moments of levity when the whole book is about oppression and I already experience oppression nearly constantly in my real life. 

Next, as I said above, nothing about this book surprised me. I was never on the edge of my seat or uncertain about the fate of the characters, because I've seen this story so many times. It hit all the beats I was expecting it to, and the only death I didn't predict was a character that I didn't care about at all. 

Finally, the romance. I'm all for a good romantic subplot, but I couldn't get behind this one. It was going for "enemies to lovers" but was done with no subtlety, I felt like I was being bashed over the head with foreshadowing about this relationship. Then, the actual enemies to lovers part happened seemingly overnight, and they suddenly didn't hate each other anymore. The romance gave me some emotional whiplash and made me feel like I was missing time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Racism, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Vomit, and Sexual harassment

daisy2050's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

ryliereadss's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.75

The narration is really good and made the book fun to listen to. The story is very dark and there is a lot of descriptions of wounds so if you’re squeamish about that be aware. The characters were well developed and had their own inner conflicts along with the external conflicts they faced. I did not see that ending coming and I can’t wait to listen to the next book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail

annorabrady's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad 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: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Child death and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Sexual content, Slavery, Trafficking, and Sexual harassment

overthinkereading's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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

4.5

So good. Just…so, so good. Honestly, I would have given five stars if I weren’t so sensitive about violence and bloodshed (and CW THERE IS A LOT OF THAT). 

Even so, the magic and tension and love (romantic and familial) and history of Orïsha is immersive. Before I even realized it, I found myself completely invested in the characters and their mission, and the cliffhanger ending makes it easy to jump right into book 2 of the series. The Author’s Note is the most powerful part of the book, though - do not skip. (Contains spoilers).

Highly recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism