Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

12 reviews

kaziaroo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

I'm never sure how I feel about multiple-POV books but this is one of the best examples I've seen of it done right. One minute I would be swayed by one POV's rose-tinted impression of another character, only to have that impression blown out of the water by seeing that character's own perspective in the next chapter. The characters' duplicitousness and reactions to each other made the story thrilling and tense, even when plotwise things were progressing slowly. I loved every second.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Alcohol, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Death, and Homophobia

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Murder, Pregnancy, Vomit, and Rape

Several detailed descriptions of handling and eating meat (both fresh and cooked).

talonsontypewriters's review

adventurous tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Sexual assault, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Ableism, Gaslighting, and Rape

Moderate: Body shaming, Cannibalism, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Xenophobia, Body horror, Grief, and Sexism

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, War, Alcohol, Child death, Miscarriage, Death of parent, Slavery, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, and Homophobia

pinup_and_pages's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring lighthearted slow-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

This book was mostly setup for these chronicles and was slow paced but still very enjoyable. Hobbs character work is of top quality as always and the slow build of this journey type story led to a bit of a thrilling cliffhanger. The only qualm I had with this first book of the series is the focus on the romantic relationships throughout. Two of the protagonists flits between attraction for one character to the other which I just did not care about. I wanted to experience more world building and plot rather than romantic interests. Having said that, with one of the protagonists written this way (a teenager), Hobb created a realistic, fickle teen which I could also appreciate.
There were a couple of scenes that were difficult to read at times (see trigger warnings) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Emotional abuse, Rape, Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, and Sexual assault

kirstym25's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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: Rape, Domestic abuse, and Ableism

Moderate: Sexual violence and Animal death

Minor: Slavery

sassmistress's review against another edition

emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

It's a very slow-paced book, but the writing is really enticing. Definitely gets a little more exciting towards the end and ends on a cliffhanger. Most of the slowness seems to come from weaving the backstories needed for the various characters. I like the subtle pro-life themes, Austen-style society, and expert emotional manipulation by the author. Would rate higher but for the graphic sexual content. 

Reminds me of A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan, if you're looking for more of the Bingtown/Alise story line. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Gore, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Rape, Racism, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, and Misogyny

Moderate: Animal death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Abandonment

Minor: Death, Alcohol, and Slavery

Emotional abuse from a spouse and from a parent, lying (nearly to the point of gaslighting) about an affair. Three graphic sex scenes-- one an unpleasantly dutiful consummation of marriage, one martial rape, and one violent fade-to-black between the two men having the aforementioned affair. Heavy prejudice based on "birth defects" for which infants are normally abandoned to die, injuries are described in detail--pus, cutting away putrified flesh, pulling out a sick dragon's scales and impaling to siphon blood, and

touching the blood flow and tasting it.

Descriptions of the effects of war and gentrification. Lots of prejudice (besides visible birth differences, there is also some racial/national prejudice). An uncomfortable amount of mysogyny/sexism, both systemic and individual.

theaceofpages's review against another edition

challenging slow-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

3.0

Dragons are a dying breed. Alise has spent her whole life studying them from afar and can't wait to finally see them in person one day. Stuck in a loveless marriage of convenience, she can't wait t escape and join the dragons in their long journey to a hopefully better future of safety and no prosecution.

 Okay. So I wanted to love this book. I love dragons and I've heard great things about Hobb. This however... Well. I usually don't mid slow paced books but I don't think very much happened? Looking at other reviews, this doesn't seem to be her best book and mainly just sets things up for later on.  Although it could also just be because I stopped to read other thins in between as I wanted something a bit more exciting at times.

That being said, I loved the dragons and the concept of the dragon keepers. I would love to be one of them and just be able to study dragons. Although there are definitely some rather shady members amongst them. Although that's always to be expected when there's money to be made. I loved reading from their perspectives as well as what the dragon keepers viewed them as. I enjoyed the more scientific minded ones the most. The biologist in me could definitely relate to the desire to understand them and learn everything they could about them. I also loved the world building. Learning about other worlds has always been one of my favourite parts of fantasy novels.

I'm not sure if I'll go and read the next book. I'd love to see more of this world, but I would like something with a little more plot. Will I give the author another chance? Yes. But I think I'll go read some other books first.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Domestic abuse, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Animal death

gracecrandall's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Sexual violence, Homophobia, Excrement, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Animal death, Ableism, Abandonment, Bullying, Rape, Toxic relationship, and Cannibalism

mariebrunelm's review against another edition

adventurous reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Despite reading a lot of fantasy, I haven't been that attracted to dragon stories because the creatures have always felt a little too perfect and fantastical for my taste. But that's not the cause with Robin Hobb's dragons. These are sick, pitiful creatures who, yes, may gulp down a human in a heartbeat, but also need their help to survive. Yet the humans don't see kindly to them. When the dragons don't fill the roles they'd been ascribed by legends and folk tales, when they keep to the ground and only consume precious resources, the Rain Wild Traders decide to drive them away. A group of misfits is hired to accompany them, just as undesirable as the dragons. 
Dragon Keeper opens the Rain Wild Chronicles and shows another facet of Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings. Where Fitz's books are about identity and Liveships about freedom, I find this series to be about ableism & free will. Dragon Keeper is more like Liveships than Farseer because of the wide array of narrators we get, but here they're all traveling together and so I find it easier, upon first reading it, to get one's bearings and dive in the story. While it's not my favourite of Robin Hobb's stories, I love how her characters interact and how she makes us love some of them and absolutely hate others. My favourite may be the quiet dragon scholar lady... 
Rep: one of the MCs is gay, but the atmosphere of the book feels quite queer in general. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

Minor: Sexual assault and Alcohol

singalana's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Rape, Abandonment, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Emotional abuse, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Animal death, Blood, and Animal cruelty

kabrahams's review against another edition

4.5

Surprisingly, this was a Robin Hobb book that did not make me cry. Probably because many knew characters were introduced and I'm still getting to know them. That being said, I will definitely cry if something bad happens to Alise or Thymara in the next books in the series.

Returning to the Rain Wilds was amazing as its my favorite part of the Elderlings world. We also get way more dragons in this book than in any of the previous ones. Sadly, they are very weak and sickly, thus unable to fly or be very dragonish. We follow the humans who are helping take care of them and study them as well as some humans who want to use them for their own gain. Also, we get a few scenes with Althea and Brashen on the Paragon that made me very happy! The ending seemed a bit abrupt and I'm excited to keep reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Moderate: Sexual violence and Domestic abuse