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samarsparkles's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-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? It's complicated
4.25
vixette's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
<b>Empire of the Vampire</b> is dark, brutal, violent, full of curses and has some questionable content. And yet, it is by far one of the better world-building books I've read in 2024, so far. The lore and the character development, particularly our protagonist Gabriel, was quite good. Make no mistake, reading the other reviews, I wanted to hate this book. At one point I truly thought I did hate this book, but the ending was everything I wanted and far better than what I was anticipating from this book.
The lore of this book, or at least what I took away from this book, is that vampirism is a disease. There is no magical turning, no sire/childe bond like in <b>Blade</b> or <b>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</b>. Instead, we have the concept that those turned early on in death retain human awareness and human intelligence. Those who turn later on in death are thralls or zombies, the brains decayed too far to retain true human intelligence. Those turned early or who turn while still alive are called Highborns, and these vampires can have sex with human women and produce half-breeds, like our protagonist Gabriel. But only male children born from this union are born half-bloods, it is implied that girl-children don't inherit the disease/vampiric hunger.
The vampiric disease is spreading since <i>daysdeath</i>, the sun never rising although there is a concept of night and day, and day still weakens the vampires despite the sun not truly shining upon the planet. The <i>daysdeath</i> and the presence of the half-bloods and vampires means these primitive people turn to the only sanctuary they know. Religion. And religious organisations are able to keep the vampires and their thralls at bay through prayer and ritual. However, their greatest tool is the halfbreeds themselves, what they call silver-saints, as these half-vampiric boys are tattooed with silver and trained to fight their fathers and their ilk.
Unfortunately, for our protagonist, he is found after the hunger of his father takes hold. The girls of his village are drawn to him because of his appearance, but also due to his aura. Women are drawn to beautiful, handsome men with an aura of power. The girl he gets with is on her period, and well, you can imagine where this goes. He ends up biting her, down there, and almost killing her. A mob forms to hunt him when the girl's father runs into her room after hearing her screams and finding Gabriel with blood upon his chin and the girl half-senseless in her bed. But he is rescued by his abusive step-father, mother and sisters, who stand between him and the mob, long enough for two silver-saints to arrive.
Greyhand and Aaron De Coste.
Greyhand is to be Aaron and Gabriel's master and tutor for many chapters of this book. A devout man who for many chapters I thought a potentially good man and hero. But alas, there are no true heroes in this book and this book paints a fantastic picture of how religion can play a role in some of the worst atrocities men can commit. After all, a good man driven by religious conviction can commit great evils in the name of his god.
Gabriel has some fantastic quotes about God through out this book, such as:
<i>"Two soldiers stand on a field of battle... Both are convinced God is on their side. Both pray to their Lord and Redeemer to smite their enemy low... But someone is going to lose. Somebody's wasting their fucking time. Maybe, just maybe... it's both of them?"
"...if he has a plan? There's no sense praying for anything. If his will be done is the golden rule, then God is going to get what he wants, regardless of how hard you beg him. And imagine, just for a second, the sense of entitlement it takes to ask for anything in the first place. The fucking who you'd need to think that this somehow is all for you..."
"Seems a little sadistic..."
"Giving you desires, then denying you the sating of them? Look, but don't touch? Taste, but don't swallow?..."
"...he's all-seeing, isn't he? All-knowing? God knows whether you are going to pass his test before he ever gives it to you....He sets you up to fail, then has the balls to question his own handiwork."
'Why is pride looked on as an evil. You work hard at something you're not born good at? Damn right you should be fucking proud.'
'...It's only in storybooks some little bastard picks up a sword and wields it like he was born to it. The rest of us? We have to work our arses off. And we may not ever taste triumph, but at least we dared to fail...'</i>
Religion is at the forefront of this book in many ways, for the silver tattoos upon the silver-saint's skin glows with their faith, creating a magical shield to repel vampires where steel, iron and leather would not. They race into battle half-naked, with silver glowing in their skin and powerful swords that they are trained every hour of the day to wield.
Their home and Order has three unique factions or departments, the silver-saints, the sisters and the blacksmiths (or blackthumbs as they are repeatedly called from our narrator, Gabriel's perspective). The blacksmiths arm the silver-saints with weapons, the sisters pray and perform rituals, tattooing the silver-saints with murals of their deity and martyrs. The silver-saints are themselves split into an heirarchy. The abbot, the seraph and senior members and the apprentices. These differences in rank are often defined by age and by how much skin is tattooed. But regardless of their position within this Order, they all live in close quarters, and yet their faith demands they remain married to the Lord and no-one else. But younglings never heed that and we are treated to two love affairs, though the book centres around one.
Gabriel's love interest is a sister named Astrid, and after reading other reviews I can agree she is a pick me girl in many aspects. Strong, independent and angry at the world, always having a snarky comment and acting as if she is Queen. In fact Gabriel's nicknames for her include 'Queen' and 'Majesty'. It turns out she is the bastard heir of the Emperor, sent into exile and seperated from her mother by the much younger and jealous Empress. This information doesn't play a vital role in the story, but is interesting all the same.
The other love story is actually a pleasant surprise, a gay romance. Forbidden by religion, of course, as religion hates anything different from the usual women are submissive to men trope. A silver-saint and a blackthumb.
Now, I am not saying this story is fantastic, that it isn't full of some questionable parts. For there is a scene which almost lowered my rating to a one or two star. I am talking about a scene which I believe is in book 3, where Gabriel, Aaron, Greyhand and a senior named Talon are hunting vampires and they discover a boy, an heir to a Lord, has turned. Since he turned early on he is a Highborn and he has turned his mother and enthralled the local priest. When he visits his mother, he feeds from her breast and from her...😅
It is here, when he is to guard the Lady alone for a previous disobedience to Greyhand's orders that he discovers his secret ability. You see, most silver-saints are a product of a Highblood vampire having intercourse with a human. And these Highbloods usually come from four vampiric families with unique abilities. One can read minds, another can talk to animals and so on and so forth. Gabriel had no power, so his nickname was frailblood, but it appears this is false and he is actually of a fifth bloodline because when he is enraged he can burn vampiric flesh and blood. He overcomes the priest, the Lady and her son, and the Lady and her son are taken back to the Order's home. There we discover that these <i>heroic</i> warriors of God are draining the vampires, even that of the Boy to make the chemical the silver-saint's smoke.
The silver-saints smoke powdered vampiric blood because it sates their vampiric hunger, albeit briefly, and it also enhances their abilities. But these <i>honourable</i> people are torturing and draining another being of its blood and some would argue it is a good cause, but the path to hell is paved with good intentions and as the Lady tells Gabriel later, how different are the silver-saints from vampires if they so willingly drain a vampire of its blood to sate their own hunger.
Speaking of which, the Lady escapes and attempts to kill Gabriel for his part in the capture of her and his son. Gabriel wins against her and two lesser vampires the saints kept locked up near the horses to desensitise the horses to the scent and sounds of the vampires. But during this fight a sister dies.
It turns out one of the elders had given into the vampiric hunger of his vampire father and had been having sex with young sisters and drinking their blood. Gross. Implied paedophilia. We also have the suggestion that the sister was pregnant, hence the reason for her death as it would have resulted in the elder's exile or execution as well as hers as she carried a potential half-blood.
Now, during a battle with a vampiress, she hints that this elder had given into his hunger in front of Aaron and Gabriel, signing their death warrants. It was this reason the Lady escaped her captivity and it is why the blackthumb and Aaron, our silver-saint, are discovered being intimate. All so the elder can eliminate them, have them removed from the Order and cover up his own weakness. For, the elder should have admitted the hunger had gotten too much and sought an honourable death, for when the hunger becomes too much they tell the abbott and allow themselves to be beheaded and thrown from their home. Better to die a man than live as a monster.
Fortunately, for Aaron, who is set to be flayed of his skin, his silver tattoos and banished with his lover, the <i>Forever King</i> and his army of the dead threaten the world and so the silver-saints are focused on a war with this undead army. The Empress visits and has them help her in the fight to hold back the <i>Forever King</i>, but what Gabriel discovers after they are long gone is that the ancient vampire is not going around the mountains to fight the Imperial army, but over, for vampires don't need warmth or food, they are already dead, the snow won't kill them. So he convinces the remaining silver-saints still left in their home to free Aaron and the blackthumb and leads them all to face against the undead army, and it is here Greyhand and Gabriel turn a blind eye and allow Aaron and his love to flee from the hatred and cruelty of a religious Order that would torture them for their love.
Long story short, Gabriel himself is soon exiled for his love of Astrid, whom he marries and has a child with. But he ends up travelling North much later in the story where he stumbles upon an old friend, a sister he trained to use the sword and the small party she is with. And they are convinced the boy they travel with knows where the Holy Grail is and therefore they need to get him to the silver-saint sanctuary. It is here we have our next hint of paedophilia as Gabriel catches this boy, Dior kissing an older woman in the band.
Now, Major spoilers here...
...
...
...
Dior is actually a girl and she is the Holy Grail. You see the Redeemer had a wife or girlfriend who was pregnant with his heir when the Redeemer was captured and killed upon their holy symbol, the wheel. Since then his blood has passed down through the womb of these women. Gabriel gets Dior to the saints' home, losing the whole band, minus the sister along the way. Only to discover that the religious order intends to kill Dior, this sixteen-year-old girl. Why? Because spilling her 'LIfeblood' MIGHT bring about the end of daysdeath.
Might because they are working from dusty scrolls and primitive beliefs.
Gabriel tries to save Dior, only to be dragged to the edge of his old home and having his head cut off by his old master, Greyhand. But he is saved by a mysterious female vampire, a female vampire who has connections to Gabriel. With her blood in his veins, he climbs the mountain to his old home and slaughters the silver saints who would kill a teenage girl because her death MIGHT bring about the end of Daysdeath. And the sister, who had been Dior's protector would have gladly stabbed Dior in the chest, such was her devout belief that killing a young girl MIGHT end the forever night.
The ending was fantastic. That all these good people were driven to commit such evil for their beliefs was horrifying, and that Gabriel murdered the people he once swore himself to just to protect a young girl from being brutally murdered by religious fanatics, was just awesome. Gruff, violent and angry, Gabriel was not meant to be a hero, but in the end, he did what his fellows could not, he chose the life of an innocent girl over outdated beliefs and 'what-ifs'. He chose the life of a girl over an idea.
Is this book for children? No.
Does it have some really gross parts? Absolutely. One vampire bathes in the blood of babies, another hunts teen girls and even has a carriage pulled by his victims at one point in the story. The first three books certainly made me sure I would mark this down to a one or two star.
But Gabriel's gruff but loyal behaviour, his determination to do right even in the face of adversity and his determination to see Dior safe, even from his own Order, endeared this character to me. And the fact that Aaron and Baptiste had a potentially happy ending! Yes, this raised my rating quite a bit. So, a one-star book now has four stars from me.
But admittedly this large book of six smaller books is not a read for everyone. Its content is very much stomach-churning at points, so it is down to your own discretion if you choose to read this book.
I've missed a few things out in my review, such as where Astrid and his daughter, Patience are but I honestly have a habit about raving about the plot of books in my reviews so I am trying to leave a little mystery here! Needless to say, by the end of book six, my opinion turned from me downright hating the book and questioning my reading choices to going 'hey, yeah this book as questionable content, but the last two books within this book turned my opinion around'.
Anyone into vampires, fantasy, war, horror and romance, may enjoy this series, but read at your own risk. It has some questionable content.
The lore of this book, or at least what I took away from this book, is that vampirism is a disease. There is no magical turning, no sire/childe bond like in <b>Blade</b> or <b>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</b>. Instead, we have the concept that those turned early on in death retain human awareness and human intelligence. Those who turn later on in death are thralls or zombies, the brains decayed too far to retain true human intelligence. Those turned early or who turn while still alive are called Highborns, and these vampires can have sex with human women and produce half-breeds, like our protagonist Gabriel. But only male children born from this union are born half-bloods, it is implied that girl-children don't inherit the disease/vampiric hunger.
The vampiric disease is spreading since <i>daysdeath</i>, the sun never rising although there is a concept of night and day, and day still weakens the vampires despite the sun not truly shining upon the planet. The <i>daysdeath</i> and the presence of the half-bloods and vampires means these primitive people turn to the only sanctuary they know. Religion. And religious organisations are able to keep the vampires and their thralls at bay through prayer and ritual. However, their greatest tool is the halfbreeds themselves, what they call silver-saints, as these half-vampiric boys are tattooed with silver and trained to fight their fathers and their ilk.
Unfortunately, for our protagonist, he is found after the hunger of his father takes hold. The girls of his village are drawn to him because of his appearance, but also due to his aura. Women are drawn to beautiful, handsome men with an aura of power. The girl he gets with is on her period, and well, you can imagine where this goes. He ends up biting her, down there, and almost killing her. A mob forms to hunt him when the girl's father runs into her room after hearing her screams and finding Gabriel with blood upon his chin and the girl half-senseless in her bed. But he is rescued by his abusive step-father, mother and sisters, who stand between him and the mob, long enough for two silver-saints to arrive.
Greyhand and Aaron De Coste.
Greyhand is to be Aaron and Gabriel's master and tutor for many chapters of this book. A devout man who for many chapters I thought a potentially good man and hero. But alas, there are no true heroes in this book and this book paints a fantastic picture of how religion can play a role in some of the worst atrocities men can commit. After all, a good man driven by religious conviction can commit great evils in the name of his god.
Gabriel has some fantastic quotes about God through out this book, such as:
<i>"Two soldiers stand on a field of battle... Both are convinced God is on their side. Both pray to their Lord and Redeemer to smite their enemy low... But someone is going to lose. Somebody's wasting their fucking time. Maybe, just maybe... it's both of them?"
"...if he has a plan? There's no sense praying for anything. If his will be done is the golden rule, then God is going to get what he wants, regardless of how hard you beg him. And imagine, just for a second, the sense of entitlement it takes to ask for anything in the first place. The fucking who you'd need to think that this somehow is all for you..."
"Seems a little sadistic..."
"Giving you desires, then denying you the sating of them? Look, but don't touch? Taste, but don't swallow?..."
"...he's all-seeing, isn't he? All-knowing? God knows whether you are going to pass his test before he ever gives it to you....He sets you up to fail, then has the balls to question his own handiwork."
'Why is pride looked on as an evil. You work hard at something you're not born good at? Damn right you should be fucking proud.'
'...It's only in storybooks some little bastard picks up a sword and wields it like he was born to it. The rest of us? We have to work our arses off. And we may not ever taste triumph, but at least we dared to fail...'</i>
Religion is at the forefront of this book in many ways, for the silver tattoos upon the silver-saint's skin glows with their faith, creating a magical shield to repel vampires where steel, iron and leather would not. They race into battle half-naked, with silver glowing in their skin and powerful swords that they are trained every hour of the day to wield.
Their home and Order has three unique factions or departments, the silver-saints, the sisters and the blacksmiths (or blackthumbs as they are repeatedly called from our narrator, Gabriel's perspective). The blacksmiths arm the silver-saints with weapons, the sisters pray and perform rituals, tattooing the silver-saints with murals of their deity and martyrs. The silver-saints are themselves split into an heirarchy. The abbot, the seraph and senior members and the apprentices. These differences in rank are often defined by age and by how much skin is tattooed. But regardless of their position within this Order, they all live in close quarters, and yet their faith demands they remain married to the Lord and no-one else. But younglings never heed that and we are treated to two love affairs, though the book centres around one.
Gabriel's love interest is a sister named Astrid, and after reading other reviews I can agree she is a pick me girl in many aspects. Strong, independent and angry at the world, always having a snarky comment and acting as if she is Queen. In fact Gabriel's nicknames for her include 'Queen' and 'Majesty'. It turns out she is the bastard heir of the Emperor, sent into exile and seperated from her mother by the much younger and jealous Empress. This information doesn't play a vital role in the story, but is interesting all the same.
The other love story is actually a pleasant surprise, a gay romance. Forbidden by religion, of course, as religion hates anything different from the usual women are submissive to men trope. A silver-saint and a blackthumb.
Now, I am not saying this story is fantastic, that it isn't full of some questionable parts. For there is a scene which almost lowered my rating to a one or two star. I am talking about a scene which I believe is in book 3, where Gabriel, Aaron, Greyhand and a senior named Talon are hunting vampires and they discover a boy, an heir to a Lord, has turned. Since he turned early on he is a Highborn and he has turned his mother and enthralled the local priest. When he visits his mother, he feeds from her breast and from her...😅
It is here, when he is to guard the Lady alone for a previous disobedience to Greyhand's orders that he discovers his secret ability. You see, most silver-saints are a product of a Highblood vampire having intercourse with a human. And these Highbloods usually come from four vampiric families with unique abilities. One can read minds, another can talk to animals and so on and so forth. Gabriel had no power, so his nickname was frailblood, but it appears this is false and he is actually of a fifth bloodline because when he is enraged he can burn vampiric flesh and blood. He overcomes the priest, the Lady and her son, and the Lady and her son are taken back to the Order's home. There we discover that these <i>heroic</i> warriors of God are draining the vampires, even that of the Boy to make the chemical the silver-saint's smoke.
The silver-saints smoke powdered vampiric blood because it sates their vampiric hunger, albeit briefly, and it also enhances their abilities. But these <i>honourable</i> people are torturing and draining another being of its blood and some would argue it is a good cause, but the path to hell is paved with good intentions and as the Lady tells Gabriel later, how different are the silver-saints from vampires if they so willingly drain a vampire of its blood to sate their own hunger.
Speaking of which, the Lady escapes and attempts to kill Gabriel for his part in the capture of her and his son. Gabriel wins against her and two lesser vampires the saints kept locked up near the horses to desensitise the horses to the scent and sounds of the vampires. But during this fight a sister dies.
It turns out one of the elders had given into the vampiric hunger of his vampire father and had been having sex with young sisters and drinking their blood. Gross. Implied paedophilia. We also have the suggestion that the sister was pregnant, hence the reason for her death as it would have resulted in the elder's exile or execution as well as hers as she carried a potential half-blood.
Now, during a battle with a vampiress, she hints that this elder had given into his hunger in front of Aaron and Gabriel, signing their death warrants. It was this reason the Lady escaped her captivity and it is why the blackthumb and Aaron, our silver-saint, are discovered being intimate. All so the elder can eliminate them, have them removed from the Order and cover up his own weakness. For, the elder should have admitted the hunger had gotten too much and sought an honourable death, for when the hunger becomes too much they tell the abbott and allow themselves to be beheaded and thrown from their home. Better to die a man than live as a monster.
Fortunately, for Aaron, who is set to be flayed of his skin, his silver tattoos and banished with his lover, the <i>Forever King</i> and his army of the dead threaten the world and so the silver-saints are focused on a war with this undead army. The Empress visits and has them help her in the fight to hold back the <i>Forever King</i>, but what Gabriel discovers after they are long gone is that the ancient vampire is not going around the mountains to fight the Imperial army, but over, for vampires don't need warmth or food, they are already dead, the snow won't kill them. So he convinces the remaining silver-saints still left in their home to free Aaron and the blackthumb and leads them all to face against the undead army, and it is here Greyhand and Gabriel turn a blind eye and allow Aaron and his love to flee from the hatred and cruelty of a religious Order that would torture them for their love.
Long story short, Gabriel himself is soon exiled for his love of Astrid, whom he marries and has a child with. But he ends up travelling North much later in the story where he stumbles upon an old friend, a sister he trained to use the sword and the small party she is with. And they are convinced the boy they travel with knows where the Holy Grail is and therefore they need to get him to the silver-saint sanctuary. It is here we have our next hint of paedophilia as Gabriel catches this boy, Dior kissing an older woman in the band.
Now, Major spoilers here...
...
...
...
Dior is actually a girl and she is the Holy Grail. You see the Redeemer had a wife or girlfriend who was pregnant with his heir when the Redeemer was captured and killed upon their holy symbol, the wheel. Since then his blood has passed down through the womb of these women. Gabriel gets Dior to the saints' home, losing the whole band, minus the sister along the way. Only to discover that the religious order intends to kill Dior, this sixteen-year-old girl. Why? Because spilling her 'LIfeblood' MIGHT bring about the end of daysdeath.
Might because they are working from dusty scrolls and primitive beliefs.
Gabriel tries to save Dior, only to be dragged to the edge of his old home and having his head cut off by his old master, Greyhand. But he is saved by a mysterious female vampire, a female vampire who has connections to Gabriel. With her blood in his veins, he climbs the mountain to his old home and slaughters the silver saints who would kill a teenage girl because her death MIGHT bring about the end of Daysdeath. And the sister, who had been Dior's protector would have gladly stabbed Dior in the chest, such was her devout belief that killing a young girl MIGHT end the forever night.
The ending was fantastic. That all these good people were driven to commit such evil for their beliefs was horrifying, and that Gabriel murdered the people he once swore himself to just to protect a young girl from being brutally murdered by religious fanatics, was just awesome. Gruff, violent and angry, Gabriel was not meant to be a hero, but in the end, he did what his fellows could not, he chose the life of an innocent girl over outdated beliefs and 'what-ifs'. He chose the life of a girl over an idea.
Is this book for children? No.
Does it have some really gross parts? Absolutely. One vampire bathes in the blood of babies, another hunts teen girls and even has a carriage pulled by his victims at one point in the story. The first three books certainly made me sure I would mark this down to a one or two star.
But Gabriel's gruff but loyal behaviour, his determination to do right even in the face of adversity and his determination to see Dior safe, even from his own Order, endeared this character to me. And the fact that Aaron and Baptiste had a potentially happy ending! Yes, this raised my rating quite a bit. So, a one-star book now has four stars from me.
But admittedly this large book of six smaller books is not a read for everyone. Its content is very much stomach-churning at points, so it is down to your own discretion if you choose to read this book.
I've missed a few things out in my review, such as where Astrid and his daughter, Patience are but I honestly have a habit about raving about the plot of books in my reviews so I am trying to leave a little mystery here! Needless to say, by the end of book six, my opinion turned from me downright hating the book and questioning my reading choices to going 'hey, yeah this book as questionable content, but the last two books within this book turned my opinion around'.
Anyone into vampires, fantasy, war, horror and romance, may enjoy this series, but read at your own risk. It has some questionable content.
jugglemisterer's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
majabwds's review against another edition
4.0
Vampires, religious zealots, too many French words and too fucking long. But I had fun while reading it.
daniwantsalibrary's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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
ajsmith_7's review against another edition
4.75
Epic!
This is by far the longest book I've ever read and the first real fantasy novel that I've read and I loved it, I already have the second book in the series lined up and ready to go!
Obviously with a book like this it starts slow, there is a vast world to build, many characters to introduce and a lot of history to catch the reader up on.
But once it gets going it rarely slows down.
The vampire lore is original to this series. The author keeps a lot of the main things we all know about vampires and adds some his own nuances to the genre, all of which I really liked.
There were twists and turns and big revelations and there was also plenty left unanswered that has me excited for the second book!
Thoroughly recommend if you like vampire stories or dark fantasy novels in general.
This is by far the longest book I've ever read and the first real fantasy novel that I've read and I loved it, I already have the second book in the series lined up and ready to go!
Obviously with a book like this it starts slow, there is a vast world to build, many characters to introduce and a lot of history to catch the reader up on.
But once it gets going it rarely slows down.
The vampire lore is original to this series. The author keeps a lot of the main things we all know about vampires and adds some his own nuances to the genre, all of which I really liked.
There were twists and turns and big revelations and there was also plenty left unanswered that has me excited for the second book!
Thoroughly recommend if you like vampire stories or dark fantasy novels in general.
lauren891's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
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
livbythesea's review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-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
4.0
citylif's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
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? No
4.75