Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

8 reviews

zoiejanelle's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

I WISH I COULD GIVE THIS BOOK TEN STARS. i dare say it was even better than The Priory of the Orange Tree, but only because it had such a fantastic book as a foundation. 
A Day Of Fallen Night built upon the lush and brilliant world of Priory and expanded upon the mythos and magic i fell in love with in Priory. the story was much faster in this book, with multiple viscerally real and flawed storytellers that made me fall in love time and time again. the plot was so deep, so intricately woven, and there was not a single point (past page 100) where i felt comfortable putting the book down for too long. 
although the audience somewhat knew the story that the book would tell, the devil is truly in the details. the characters and their arcs truly made this book worth reading and enriched the lore of the world tenfold. getting to know the players in the folklore intimately was just magical… i will never read Priory the same way. 
also… the romance in this book was NEXT LEVEL. i did not think Samantha Shannon could top Ead and Sabran, but i was very, very wrong. the two main romances in this story were sapphic, which i loved, and all mentioned partnerships were extremely three-dimensional and believable. i won’t put spoilers here, but the enemies to lovers was SERVING in this book and i wept MULTIPLE TIMES over one particular couple. and over other things as well.
this book simultaneously re-opened and healed some aching wounds inside me—wounds surrounding womanhood, motherhood, family, religion, love, duty, and identity. i was a complete sniveling mess for the last ~150 pages of the book, but i wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. 
Samantha Shannon has done it again. A Day Of Fallen Night is truly a masterpiece. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Grief, Body horror, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, Violence, Death of parent, Sexual content, War, Infidelity, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Body horror, Alcohol, Xenophobia, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, and Child death

Minor: Infertility, Adult/minor relationship, and Abortion

bergha1998's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.25

I liked most of the plot lines in this one. It’s helpful that all except one are POVs of women. It’s just a long book, in a way that makes it feel like a long book. I think a more thorough editing could have made this book much more enjoyable. 

Multi-POV, LGBTQIA+, Romance Subplots, 1 🔥

“I bid you mind my heart. I leave half of it in your keeping.”

“Your pain is not my pain, but I know its shape. I am sorry for it.“

“‘Because you would not believe until you saw.’ ‘Is that so terrible?’”

“He saw danger in difference… Some people need to call others evil, so they can seem pure and righteous in comparison, or to purge contempt they hold in secret for themselves.“

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death, Grief, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, War, Death of parent, Infidelity, Torture, Violence, Animal death, and Blood

raptorq's review against another edition

adventurous 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, and Child death

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

gracewiley's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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: War, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Death

Moderate: Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Animal death, and Body horror

Minor: Confinement, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Adult/minor relationship, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, Child death, Sexual content, Medical content, and Xenophobia

aas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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: Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Murder, Pregnancy, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Suicide, Violence, Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, and War

darkefyres's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Death of parent, and Blood

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Animal death, Infidelity, Body horror, Gore, and War

alexalily's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Pregnancy, Blood, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Grief, Religious bigotry, Confinement, War, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Gore, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Terminal illness, Animal death, Child death, Body horror, Classism, Medical content, and Sexual content

Minor: Alcohol, Cancer, Chronic illness, Vomit, Suicide, Cannibalism, Infidelity, and Kidnapping

bashsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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

This book is soooo long and the space & energy for writing a review is so short, yet I shall forge on. A Day of Fallen Night is just as incredible as The Priory of the Orange Tree - if not moreso. Although I read Priory over a year ago now, slipping into this prequel was much easier than getting into the first book. The worldbuilding and the lore came back to me quickly, prodded along by the fact that this is meant to be readable as a standalone. Sometimes that quality can be repetative when you read multiple books in the same universe, but here it was just a boon. 

A short list of things I liked about this book: 

• Always amuses me that Shannon not only made Fantasy Catholicism but also made it canonically false.
• Addition of nonbinary rep - including nonbinary titles! I love the terms Mastress and Lade. 
• Addition of other trans rep - there are at least two trans men & just like the gay relationships, no one bats an eye at them. 
• Thrit, I am emotionally invested in this secondary character, he is the best.
• Gay-on-gay-on-gay violence at one of the climaxes
  Spoiler

  where all the narrators run into each other.

No complaints, 100% recommend, I can't wait for the next book in this universe.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Sexual content, Animal death, Death, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Blood, Religious bigotry, Violence, and War

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Kidnapping, Colonisation, Body horror, Infidelity, and Xenophobia

Minor: Suicide, Cannibalism, and Mental illness