Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff

5 reviews

jezabelh's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Animal death, Death of parent, Gore, Murder, Sexual content, Cursing, and Blood

Minor: Torture

rafacolog's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

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

karalara's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Body horror, Cursing, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Grief, Violence, Murder, Gore, Sexual content, Animal death, Blood, and Misogyny

lettigirl101's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Excrement, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Murder, Torture, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Self harm, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Slavery, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

bluejayreads's review against another edition

dark

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

The first two books in this series were bloody, violent, and fun. They’re not the kind of thing anyone would describe as a literary masterpiece, but if you like your fluff reading on the gory side, they’re quite entertaining. This one went off that track quite a bit. 

That’s not to say it wasn’t violent or bloody, because it was. But it was very much toned down (although with this series, “toned down” still puts it in the “very gory” category). Darkdawn was much more about mythology and gods, why darkin are the way they are, the nature of family, and the complexities of father-daughter relationships. 

Normally I love cool stuff about gods and fantasy religions, so it’s weird for me to say I didn’t like it as much, but I didn’t. I was expecting something high-energy and brutal, not too complex, and focusing on Mia’s goal to murder these specific people as well as anyone who gets in her way. Instead there are god squabbles and Chosen One save-the-world stuff and everything and everyone trying to convince Mia to give up the revenge she’s spent the past decade working towards and suddenly be altruistic and self-sacrificing. It just wasn’t realistic. On top of that, the gods weren’t all that interesting, I strongly dislike love triangles, the Absurdly Powerful Protagonist trope that I loved from previous books was nearly absent, and the climactic fight was boring more than anything. 

I did finish it, and though the tone of this review may indicate otherwise, it was engaging enough that I overall enjoyed the reading experience. It was just a dramatic departure from the core of the previous two books, going from Mia’s personal bloody revenge to fate-of-the-world deity shenanigans. It felt like a low-energy, large-scope ending to a high-energy, small-scope story. 

This isn’t a bad book, and I didn’t hate it. I just had hoped for the conclusion to the action-packed, violent delight of the Nevernight trilogy to be different, and I guess a little more, than it is. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Sexual content, Blood, Gore, Violence, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal death and Body horror

Minor: Infidelity

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