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garrettcz's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-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? Yes
4.5
This was the weakest in the series but still great! It’s told in a pretty confusing way that’s very different from the rest of the series, but was still a ton of fun to read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Death, Gore, Infertility, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
merisoricica's review against another edition
Animal cruelty.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty
sheyri's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Actually reading it was fine, but thinking about reading it I was mostly bored.
And I just can't believe a fourteen-year-old would act like that.
And I just can't believe a fourteen-year-old would act like that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Rape and Abortion
nerdyforbooks_'s review against another edition
I could not stand Jorg in the first book. Omfg is he the most annoying person ever & not because he’s “evil” or “morally grey.” I wasn’t sure if I planned to continue this series or not because of him. However, everyone says he gets better. The final book is a masterpiece etc etc.
FFS I couldn’t do it. Jorg is better, sure. I guess I don’t remember the first one being this big of a chore to read? IDK. I can handle jumping back & forth on timelines but the points where you’re like wait, wtf just happened? That was a dream? Or a memory we can’t see?
Honestly, I might just not be a fan of Mark Lawrence at this point. The Book that Wouldn’t Burn felt like a chore to get through at times & I started feeling that here. Oh well.
FFS I couldn’t do it. Jorg is better, sure. I guess I don’t remember the first one being this big of a chore to read? IDK. I can handle jumping back & forth on timelines but the points where you’re like wait, wtf just happened? That was a dream? Or a memory we can’t see?
Honestly, I might just not be a fan of Mark Lawrence at this point. The Book that Wouldn’t Burn felt like a chore to get through at times & I started feeling that here. Oh well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
lermaline's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
J'ai apprécié suffisamment les livres pour achever la série. Cependant ce second tome ne m'a pas laissé une impression durable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Gore, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Miscarriage, and Sexual assault
whirl's review
adventurous
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Infertility, Rape, Abortion, and Pregnancy
Minor: Pedophilia
surdiablo's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Certainly an improvement over the first book. Jorg does grow as a character and develops some sort of concern for others in his own way and is way less edgy, making it much more easy to sympathize with him. It still follows the same formulae as first book however, with higher stakes and a sprinkle of Katherine's journal entries. If you didn't like first book very well because of how annoying Jorg was, this might be an improvement for you. There's also a 'dog torturing' scene that's pretty gruesome so I would recommend skipping that if it's too much, you will know when.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, and Violence
Moderate: Body horror
Minor: Mental illness, Miscarriage, and Rape
cygny's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
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? Yes
4.5
"Somewhere along the line Makin turned from my rescuer, sent out by Father to recover me, into a follower, and ever since he decided to follow my lead the man had been teaching me. Not with books and charts like Tutor Lundist but in that sneaky, indirect way the Nuban had, the kind of way that gets under your skin and turns you slowly by example."
I'll start by saying I read this for the most part as audiobook. I had the physical copy from the library but I listened to the most of it, apart from the last 150 pages or so. I'm not sure if it was purely due to the audio or that I would have thought some of the following things if I had just read it.
I was confused several times in the first few hundred pages. We had several time shifts (each chapter did say when we were, but sometimes I really wondered where I was exactly in the story) and added to that the diary, which was from another POV. A lot of things happened quickly, small events following one after the other and I wondered what was the use, why they were mentioned. Most of them made sense in the end, but there were so many that I probably can't even remember it all.
But this being said, I really loved it a lot and do plan on buying the books and reading them again. You can definitely see a change in Jorg. He claims it is due to a certain event but I don't agree with that. I felt he had grown on himself, the fact that he was now responsible for so many, the fact that he had good men who were giving the right example, must have done at least something to him. Don't get me wrong, he is still an evil man who does evil things, but he also does good things. And I felt he didn't just do it for himself or his goals.
I loved the relationship he had with certain characters. I loved some of the new introduced characters and was really sad when some old ones died. I kept waiting for more of them to die but at least some were spared.
Still love the idea of the Builders and to find out extra little fragments about them. Really hope it all will be explained. Also love the name Builders, instead of Old ones or something.
I'm still confused about the magic wielders and what their final goal is. I still wonder about how much of what Jorg has done, really were his ideas and how many were whispered to him. I knew very early on about a certain ghost who was following him but the final discovery really made me so sad for Jorg and made me wonder how many motives were not his own. I hope to find out all about it in the final book.
And then I have all these HBTs (Half Baked Theories). I will forget about them since I can't annotate in audio or library books and that's why I need to reread and add all the stickies.
I'll start by saying I read this for the most part as audiobook. I had the physical copy from the library but I listened to the most of it, apart from the last 150 pages or so. I'm not sure if it was purely due to the audio or that I would have thought some of the following things if I had just read it.
I was confused several times in the first few hundred pages. We had several time shifts (each chapter did say when we were, but sometimes I really wondered where I was exactly in the story) and added to that the diary, which was from another POV. A lot of things happened quickly, small events following one after the other and I wondered what was the use, why they were mentioned. Most of them made sense in the end, but there were so many that I probably can't even remember it all.
But this being said, I really loved it a lot and do plan on buying the books and reading them again. You can definitely see a change in Jorg. He claims it is due to a certain event but I don't agree with that. I felt he had grown on himself, the fact that he was now responsible for so many, the fact that he had good men who were giving the right example, must have done at least something to him. Don't get me wrong, he is still an evil man who does evil things, but he also does good things. And I felt he didn't just do it for himself or his goals.
I loved the relationship he had with certain characters. I loved some of the new introduced characters and was really sad when some old ones died. I kept waiting for more of them to die but at least some were spared.
Still love the idea of the Builders and to find out extra little fragments about them. Really hope it all will be explained. Also love the name Builders, instead of Old ones or something.
I'm still confused about the magic wielders and what their final goal is. I still wonder about how much of what Jorg has done, really were his ideas and how many were whispered to him. I knew very early on about a certain ghost who was following him but the final discovery really made me so sad for Jorg and made me wonder how many motives were not his own. I hope to find out all about it in the final book.
And then I have all these HBTs (Half Baked Theories). I will forget about them since I can't annotate in audio or library books and that's why I need to reread and add all the stickies.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, and Fire/Fire injury
m3gan0's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Rape, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Minor: Mental illness, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Abortion, and Pregnancy
I have no idea how this trilogy will end at this point but it's been a fantastic (though dark and violent) read so far. I hope book 3 is just as good.stacey_the_chapter_conundrum's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
My Cawpile Score = 7.86/10 so this was a 4.25 star read for me! :)
I think that this did a better job of fitting into a more typical fantasy formula with it being more of a tension build up to a few big/key moments by giving the reader more and more information nuggets along the way instead of having the reader feel like they're putting together a big puzzle like in Prince of Thorns so I think most readers will prefer this sequel. Personally, I missed all the little questions and reveals and preferred the style and pacing of the previous book though.
That said there were a lot of improvements here! The prose felt better, there were a lot of great character moments, the side characters got more attention and we got to explore and expand on some things from Prince of Thorns such as the world and the road brothers past story & group dynamic.
I felt that some of the ending here was a bit too convenient and that brought my rating down a bit but overall I really enjoyed this and I'm excited to jump into Emperor of Thorns. :)
I think that this did a better job of fitting into a more typical fantasy formula with it being more of a tension build up to a few big/key moments by giving the reader more and more information nuggets along the way instead of having the reader feel like they're putting together a big puzzle like in Prince of Thorns so I think most readers will prefer this sequel. Personally, I missed all the little questions and reveals and preferred the style and pacing of the previous book though.
That said there were a lot of improvements here! The prose felt better, there were a lot of great character moments, the side characters got more attention and we got to explore and expand on some things from Prince of Thorns such as the world and the road brothers past story & group dynamic.
I felt that some of the ending here was a bit too convenient and that brought my rating down a bit but overall I really enjoyed this and I'm excited to jump into Emperor of Thorns. :)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
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