Reviews tagging 'Schizophrenia/Psychosis '

Elias & Laia - Eine Fackel im Dunkel der Nacht by Sabaa Tahir

4 reviews

lada_bu_joreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.5

I am past annoyed with Laia and Helene. The 2 major characters who can and will control the tide of the situation are the 2 most confused characters who suddenly do not have a goal. Elias literally is willing, and does go to death to fulfill his goal and promise. While these two ding bats can't keep focused on a goal or a promise and whine so much!
Yes, Elias whines, but he also puts his money where his mouth is and gets to work. While Helene especially can't figure out if she wants to be a leader or a scared little daddy's girl. Even after multiple times by different people, even those she hate telling her to get her act together. Laia just floored me by laying up Keenan after the death of her so-called friend and Elias taking off without her. And no questions as to why or how Keenan knows what he knows or does what he does. My guy was given me creeps from t he jump and when he switched so quickly from despising her to "loving her," It's like hold up. Sus activity. And yes, stress can cause a lot of misjudging, etc. and I am glad it was mentioned that she is a horrible decision maker and leader. Because it's true. She could decide or figure herself out of a cave. The o ly thing that saved this whole book with me was Elias and Nightbringer. Their character developments saved the story, in my opinion. Even the Commandants character was true to the end.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail

76juliane67's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

3.75

I liked this book a lot, but found it a bit weaker than the first book.
The story is captivating and very fast paced, but extremely dark with a lot of potentially triggering themes, so be aware when you pick this up.
I never usually say this about a book, but I think it could have been 100 pages longer. There were several instances when something was not explained and I was thrown out of the story because of this. I also found the progression of the

love story between Laia and Keenan

very forced and unnatural and you could see that it was written in there for a specific plot point.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, and Police brutality

Moderate: Rape, Terminal illness, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

veeronald's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? No

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Violence, Police brutality, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Vomit, Stalking, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

angstifies's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.0

the premise of this book was great but it failed in almost every single aspect.

i honestly slightly liked Laia in book 1, but this book made her almost unbearable for me. she turned into this aspirant saint who always needs to save everyone and leave no one behind and i just hated it. it is such a dumb concept especially in a brutal fantasy world like this, it irritated me so much and i wish she could shut up about how “attractive and manly” both Elias and Keenan are and just… stop…

two complains i have about both this book and the previous one was the writing and the setting/descriptions. 
the writing is once again too childish, focuses on the wrong things at the wrong times, and the way the characters narrate the story is just tiresome. the author has this way of shoving explanations down my throat of things EVERYONE CAN GUESS in a way that something happens and then Laia/Elias/Helene have to specifically explain it when it’s TOTALLY NOT NEEDED. you already guessed what happened but the narration HAS to point it it out for you so it felt repetitive without actually being repetitive. 

and i’m sure the setting is amazing, if we only ever got descriptions of it. Elias and Laia are both traveling for most part of the book but the places they are in are never described, and i really wish they were. i cannot imagine how Serra is, how the houses in Serra are, how the market, the place where they go meet the tribes, the prison look like BECAUSE THERE ARE NO DESCRIPTIONS. we only get vague descriptions of characters, mostly repeating descriptions of characters that have already been described too many times. like yes, i did remember that Helene had blonde hair and Laia had golden eyes, thank you for pointing it out for the 10th time in this chapter.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Genocide, Misogyny, Sexism, Slavery, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Racism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Sexual harassment