Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

38 reviews

michelejenn's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Death, Death of parent, Child death, Blood, Xenophobia, Torture, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, and Genocide

purechaos's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing 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: Genocide, Gore, Child abuse, Colonisation, Hate crime, Slavery, Child death, Confinement, Kidnapping, Murder, Xenophobia, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Rape, Violence, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, War, Self harm, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Classism, Cursing, and Death

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

kaylaboevers's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Classism, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Genocide and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Sexual assault and Rape

osladek's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This book was very meh for me. The constant action kept me engaged, but the plot and characters bored me. The magic system and world building were great, but I really didn't feel any connection to the 3 main characters. I was super disturbed by the enemies to lovers in this book and was very happy

Spoiler

that Inan dies and doesn't have a redemption arc because he absolutely did not deserve one after everything

I haven't read YA in a long time and this book reminded me why. The very basic plot that is the practically the same as every other high fantasy did not keep my attention as I always knew what was going to happen. I don't normally mind a basic plot if the worldbuilding and character arcs are worth it. I think these characters suffered from 1 dimensionality which made them not feel like individuals. Amari and Zelie don't seem similar in the beginning, but once they interact with each other and we get their POVs back to back they totally blend together into the same character. I just was not moved by this book. The allegory to police brutality definitely felt powerful and extremely relevant to the modern day prison industrial complex, but not enough to forgive these boring characters and plotline. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, War, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Racism, Torture, Death, Child death, and Slavery

micaelamariem's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

I’ll post a full review on my blog in the morning but omg this was a wonderful book! Based on Orisha mythology from West Africa, and inspired by the urge to fight back against police brutality of unarmed Black citizens, Tomi Adeyemi examines a fantasy world where magic users are stripped of their power and beaten down until a few characters decide they want a change, and how they can fight back against how they were taught their whole lives. Loved the character development, the world building, the important themes, and the shocking betrayals. Ends on a cliffhanger and I need the next book now! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, War, Cursing, Death of parent, Gore, Genocide, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Violence, and Vomit

squinnittowinit's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Edit: After thinking on this book a bit more, I've decided to lower the rating from a 3.75 to a 2. I kept trying to convince myself that this was a good story because I keenly understand the place it was written from, but beyond the bare bones of it, I don't think it actually was. I didn't enjoy the characters and I felt like the plot didn't actually make a whole lot of sense. I've decided that I will not be reading the sequel.

Original review:
Overall, this is a good story with a (unfortunately) very relatable setting: an oppressive society that treats certain people as lesser due to something inherent that they cannot control. I felt the author's pain and anger surrounding this real-world issue in the writing, and perhaps if this had been my first exposure to the mindset of the oppressed group, I might have found it more impactful. However, I personally found it a little tiring for specific reasons that I will mark as a spoiler below. 

Again, it is a good story, just one I've seen many times already. Nothing about it surprised me and as much as I was rooting for them, I didn't love any of the characters by the end. I'm not sure if you're supposed to or not.

Spoiler

The specific reasons I found this book to be tiring have a lot to do with the main characters. All three were naive to a fault, and retained that naivete throughout the entire book, even as their views on certain things changed. I suppose it's realistic, as they are all teenagers and teenagers are very naive, but I found it very frustrating to read about them doing impulsive and very ill-advised things over and over again and then only afterwards thinking that they might have been bad ideas. 

Next, there is the issue of trauma. This is a book based in racial trauma, which makes it automatically not a fun read for me. Again, I really want to stress that I'm not saying it's bad, but it's very real, and it's hard to laugh at any of the jokes or moments of levity when the whole book is about oppression and I already experience oppression nearly constantly in my real life. 

Next, as I said above, nothing about this book surprised me. I was never on the edge of my seat or uncertain about the fate of the characters, because I've seen this story so many times. It hit all the beats I was expecting it to, and the only death I didn't predict was a character that I didn't care about at all. 

Finally, the romance. I'm all for a good romantic subplot, but I couldn't get behind this one. It was going for "enemies to lovers" but was done with no subtlety, I felt like I was being bashed over the head with foreshadowing about this relationship. Then, the actual enemies to lovers part happened seemingly overnight, and they suddenly didn't hate each other anymore. The romance gave me some emotional whiplash and made me feel like I was missing time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Racism, Genocide, Classism, and Death of parent

Moderate: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, War, and Murder

Minor: Ableism, Vomit, Mental illness, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia

sshabein's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

I enjoyed this a lot, and I'm eager to see what the adaptation is going to be like, should it ever come out.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Torture

Moderate: Murder and Fire/Fire injury

annorabrady's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, War, Racism, Grief, Child abuse, Death, Classism, Violence, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Murder, Genocide, Panic attacks/disorders, Misogyny, Gaslighting, and Blood

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Child death

Minor: Trafficking, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Slavery

overthinkereading's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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? It's complicated

4.5

So good. Just…so, so good. Honestly, I would have given five stars if I weren’t so sensitive about violence and bloodshed (and CW THERE IS A LOT OF THAT). 

Even so, the magic and tension and love (romantic and familial) and history of Orïsha is immersive. Before I even realized it, I found myself completely invested in the characters and their mission, and the cliffhanger ending makes it easy to jump right into book 2 of the series. The Author’s Note is the most powerful part of the book, though - do not skip. (Contains spoilers).

Highly recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Death, Classism, Racism, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Child death, Gore, Police brutality, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia

puggreader'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? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Murder, Child death, Death, Torture, Death of parent, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Vomit and Sexual harassment