Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

Throne of Glass - Die Erwählte by Sarah J. Maas

21 reviews

ameydireads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

“We all bear scars, Dorian. Mine just happen to be more visible than most.”

My very first Sarah J. Maas book and I have to say it was good. This book gives us a proper introduction to the main characters and to an interesting new world: a world where magic is forbidden. I instantly liked Dorian because of his sweet nature, and Nehemia. She commands respect, is smart enough to lay low when she needs to, and knows magic! 

The overall plot was also enjoyable. An assassin (Celaena), locked up in a death prison, gets a chance to win back her freedom. The only thing she has to do is win the King’s Champion Tournament and be his champion for the next four years. Easier said than done. One would expect that a ruthless assassin would do anything to win this competition, especially when there’s so much at stake, but it seems Celaena has an altruistic side as well. She's also a woman of many talents. When some of the champions turn up dead during the tournament, she uses her investigation skills to find the killer. I'm all in for a good murder mystery, so I loved that! 

I'm yet to be convinced of her skills as an assassin though. So far, she only thinks about the different ways of disarming and killing the guards, which I found really annoying. We don't see her actually use her abilities. Even when there is something big going on, she has people around that help her. I hope we'll learn more about Celaena as an assassin in the next books. There are many hints to Celaena’s past and I guess that will be covered in the prequel (Assassin’s Blade iirc). 

Oh, and the love triangle… nope.

Why is she leading on Dorian only to drop him at the end? She says there's no hope for them now that she's Champion, but how did she not think about that beforehand. Her aim was always to become Champion, right? It might be just me being fed up with love triangles after having read so many of them already.

For a first book in a series, it's pretty good. There’s so much more to this world & I’m eager to explore it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Drug use, Grief, Death of parent, and War

Minor: Rape

cineladeras's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Misogyny, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Drug abuse, and Drug use

kk_gotit_goinon's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This is everything I wanted ACOTR to be. Mystery, magic, fighting, court politics. Romance is there but as a side plot. I read the novellas before this but you don't need it. Excited for the next book! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Blood, Vomit, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

orakuruno's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

The plot was interesting and hooked me right away, but the characters felt underdeveloped and the world building wasn't what it could've been.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Blood

Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Vomit, Death of parent, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Deportation

spatterson7's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Sexism, Slavery, Blood, and Vomit

Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Drug use, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual content, Torture, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and War

bree_h_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

I read this a few years ago and refused to read the rest of the series because the ending upset me so much. And while it obviously didn’t change over the years I was interested to see how my views of the book changed.

To start, the prose has moments of being less than great, but overall I think read pretty well. Which was an interesting contrast to ACOTAR. I definitely think to narrator was a big help with that as she had a great performance and I felt like she added a lot of personality to it. Her skill as a narrator also really elevated the characters and helped them stand out a bit more to me. Finally, Celaena and Dorian’s dynamic is amazing. While between the two love interest options I think he’s the BEST, I’m not mad about them remaining friends.

However, the book had its flaws that I had a hard time looking past. The biggest was the POV changes. I was frequently lost on what POV we were in as they all sounded very similar and there was no clear marker for the change in POV. It also felt unnecessary, like SJM didn’t know how to deliver all the information from one POV and was compensating with these POV changes. I also wasn’t a fan of the love triangle and it felt HEAVILY skewed towards Dorian. Which wasn’t helped by Chaol and Celaena’s dynamic changing so quickly and feeling unearned in the shift to friendship. Also both the guys were kinda sexist and it was hard to get behind either one of them being with Celaena.

Overall the book was just okay. I enjoyed it more than I thought which was a nice surprise.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic relationship, and Death of parent

Minor: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, Colonisation, and Classism

merrow's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious reflective 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

It’sa good story with characters who are enjoyable to read.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Drug use, Eating disorder, Genocide, Misogyny, Death of parent, and Alcohol

longlostlillian's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Vomit

Minor: Addiction, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide, Blood, War, and Injury/Injury detail

jusgalery's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

An enjoyable read, however not as gripping as other SJM books I have read. I found myself enjoying the plot, but not as attached to the characters (though I still like them). 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction and Violence

Minor: Slavery

aammeess's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Confinement, Drug use, Torture, Grief, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Misogyny, Sexism, and Alcohol