Reviews - The Gods of Men | The StoryGraph

171 reviews for:

The Gods of Men

Barbara Kloss

4.05 AVERAGE

lolo_sh0ei's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

jgellington's review

5.0

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: Complicated

jortaylorlee_93's review against another edition

2.0

A super boring read with a drab FMC and drawn out story line

literary_steph's review against another edition

This type of fantasy is my jam. It's brutal, intense, it hurts and I loved it. I loved the multiple perspectives, but the main two are Sable and Jeric. Sable's strength, courage and compassion is a contrast to Jeric's deeply rooted prejudices and the violence he's known for. A romance blooms between them and there's no denying they have great chemistry together.

Mean while, in-fighting broils back home at Skyhold, between soon to be crowned King, Hagan and the jarls. Their citizens are mysteriously and horrifically found dead by the masses. The slaves are vanishing and are rumored to be recruited by an ancient dark leader resurrected by a necromancer. It's all so interesting and engaging.

Fantastic world building infused with old and new gods, dangerous characters and interesting music and dark magic system. The story is tightly plotted, some twists I saw coming and others I didn't. The pacing starts a little sluggish, as most fantasies do when world building is involved but it builds at a steady pace, which I prefer over info dumping. The last 2 pages, stole my heart. I ship Imari and Jeric hard. I really hope Jeric keeps his promise. Scratch that. He's a man of his word, so I know he WILL keep his promise and I can't wait to see if sparks fly!

Overall, I absolutely loved it. Read this if you like:
-new adult high fantasy
-gods/religions
-music magic and dark magic
-enemies to lovers
-vile characters
-political machinations

sensitivity warning: derogatory fantasy terms, non explicit attempted rape/sexual assault, suggestive adult themes, fantasy violence

eri6's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

kdecker1's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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: Yes

Trigger warning: lots of SA or references to SA in this book.

What a well written story. This is a complex intriguing world of fantasy and politics. Wars of the past between a magic wielding race of people and a regular people caused strife over 150 years later between the two factions. The non-magic wielding race now enslaves or kills many of the people of the old magic wielding race even though they no longer weird magic, making racism a large problem, and retaliation.

Both sides have good reasons to not trust the other. Half of the time I could not tell who was good vs bad because I reluctantly understood the reasoning behind a lot of the characters decisions, however atrocious they initially seemed. But a lot of innocents suffered because of it.

I appreciated that the characters in this fantasy romance actually acted mature and didn’t act like overly horny teenagers as is usually the case in this genre these days. The romance elements were fluid, natural, and didn’t feel rushed. To be honest it was more tension than romance between the FMC and MMC but that’s ok. I hope it blooms more in the coming books in the series. The FMC, Sable, was complex, intelligent, and snarky, but kind to those in need. I enjoyed how complex all the characters were.