Reviews with content warning for Gore - Empire of the Vampire

Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

115 reviews

hildaahlstrand's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious 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? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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ketreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.5

Empire of the Vampire was a pick by a friend of mine for our book-buddy-duo.
I had not heard of this book, nor read any of Jay Kristoff's other works before starting on this one.

Simply: I loved it.
Kristoff's use of age old vampire lore + grim-dark & French Gothic setting is something that just fits together effortlessly. The world he has created is full of darkness, danger and years of history that has created the feeling of a well-realised and lived in world.

This book follows our main character of Gabriel de Leon throughout two time-lines in his life:
Naive boy becoming a legend, and the broken legend trying to survive in a world that failed him.
It is a tale about love, loss, faith, humanity, and found family. The book starts with our character already defeated and alone, being forced to tell his story to another. He's immediately a dick, unlikeable and arrogant, even at his lowest. Throughout the story you come to understand him better (often better than even he seems to understand himself), feel for him, his family, and his friends. The story is one of adventure, mystery but most importantly it's a human story.
In a world full of vampires, the story is about humans and the lengths they would go to protect those in-which they love.
I liked it a lot.

Though do be warned this is a foul mouthed and often gory tale, I never found it without reason to be.

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constellation_library's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This was my most highly anticipated read of 2021, and I can say with my whole chest that it did not disappoint. Gabriel De Leon is one of the most unlikeable MCs, but he has his reasons, and his story is told through interview, which reads very Interview with a Vampire or Name of the Wind. This story will destroy you in the best way possible.

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lunaruprising's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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

3.75

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tallangryplanet's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

In a world where the sun barely shines anymore, the last Silversaint shares the tale of his life with a vampire.

The vampires in this story are not the sparkly kind, but rather brutal creatures with an incredible hunger for power. I would like to start by saying that this book was way more explicit than I expected, so if you're sensitive to gore and violence I'd advise to go in mentally prepared. However, even though those elements sometimes threw me off, the book was still pretty enjoyable.

There are two timelines here, following two different moments in the protagonist's life. In the beginning it felt a bit info-dumpy because of how complex the world was and all the interruptions to explain some aspects of the lore, but it picked up later, and it wasn't too hard to follow the different stories. The plot itself was interesting, and the different characters made it more dynamic without getting too confusing.

This was, in general, a pleasant reading experience. I don't have a particular reason for my rating, but rather the feeling that it could've been better, and that some parts were just too heavy and dense. However, it was not at all a bad book, and if you don't mind taking some time to read it (this is not the kind of story you're done with in an afternoon), I totally encourage darker fantasy fans to give it a go.

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