Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

76 reviews

bitter_critter's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Religious bigotry, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Kidnapping

mice_are_nice'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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Child death

chelly_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring reflective 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: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and War

lmfry's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Animal death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Death of parent, and Classism

Minor: Alcohol

readandfindout's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

4.0

Style/writing: 4 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Plot: 3.5 stars stars
Worldbuilding: 4 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Animal death and Religious bigotry

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, and Cannibalism

shottel's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.75

A Day of Fallen Night is an improvement over The Priory of the Orange Tree in nearly every way. It would take a long time to enumerate all the positive changes, but a few in short: The pacing is better, the diversity is better, the appeal to modern audiences is better, the feminist themes are clearer, and even the cover art is better! Priory's Eastern branch lagged, but the branches are deftly balanced in Fallen Night. The book remediates Priory's odd penchant for mostly only mentioning the skin type of white characters, and features a significant number of LGBT+ (every letter of the acronym! and then some!) main and secondary characters. It draws on contemporary writing trends from other adult-genre books and, seemingly, fanfiction ("It's too cold, we have to cuddle for warmth") to excellent effect. And women's issues, most notably issues of pregnancy and birth, feature far more prominently, with the noble requirement to sustain a bloodline playing a role throughout the book.

This mandate to procreate establishes this book as far more clearly feminist (the idea that women have issues, interests, and stories worth hearing as much as men do) than its sequel. The need for nobility to sustain itself through childbirth is a recurring, central issue of the book, among other issues which concern women more than they do men, which also make frequent appearances.

In some ways, this book feels like it was written to an audience that might be into medieval court drama or epic adventures, but aren't too fond of the biases that pervade those genres. It is a grand epic, fantastically wrote, including women, LGBT+ characters, and people of color as equals to men, cishet, and white characters.

There are only a few places where it falters. The biggest problem I had is that the action scenes are confusing. I found myself frequently struggling to imagine the scene, re-reading portions over and over again. At first I thought it was a me issue, but after a half-dozen or so times, I figured it's probably not a me problem.

Additionally, I flagged two more minor concerns. First, with the presence of so many LGBT+ characters, the lack of transfeminine characters stands out oddly. Perhaps one or both of the nonbinary characters in the book are intended to be transfeminine, but there is no way to know this from the text. I don't make any guesses as to why; it just sits weirdly. Secondly, while *Priory* is a truly self-contained work, *Fallen Night* hints at an intention to write another book set between the two. This is the only change which I find to be a step backwards from *Priory*.

When layered inside an over 800 page grand adventure, these issues are minor, thus my score of 4.75/5. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in grand adventures, feminist fiction, fantasy, or fiction with LGBT+ main characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infertility, Miscarriage, Torture, and Kidnapping

Minor: Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, and Abortion

hannahpings's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? No

4.5

my god i fell in love with this book and these people and this world. i never wanted it to end and i'm so sad it did. every single one (not an exaggeration!) of its characters had significant depth and nuance, and felt authentic in a way i wasn't necessarily expecting. i'm not going to be able to forget about any of them any time soon, and i wouldn't want to. it's also seeped in the lore and complex politics that i was craving after its predecessor. 

i also loved priory––i think it was fantastic––but for me, there's been a marked improvement in samantha shannon's writing between the two. a day of fallen night gives itself time to breathe, has pitch-perfect pacing, and doesn't fall prey to the same "and then all this happened btw and now we're here" telling-not-showing issue that priory does.

this book made me feel a way i haven't felt in 20 years at least. i truly cannot wait to read all 868 pages again

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Suicide, and Vomit

amschelly153's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

Stunning read, compelling and adventurous. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Gore, Violence, Grief, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

beckyyreadss's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense 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? Yes

4.0

I wanted to read this book because I enjoyed The Priory of the Orange Tree. This book is slow-paced and action packed.  

This book has several points of view. The first is Tunuva Melim. She is a sister of the Priory. For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms – but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory’s purpose. In the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hroth which has narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadows – exactly where she wants to be. The dragon of the East have slept for centuries. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. Now someone from her mother’s past is coming to upend her fate. When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.  

The way I rate fantasy books is how easy it is for me to get into the world and these characters. I know I had some advantage from reading The Priory of the Orange Tree and we knew the world, but obviously with it being a prequel, there was a lot of new characters and a lot of things to learn before the events of The Priory of the Orange Tree. I haven’t struggled with this series; it was sinking into a comfy chair by the fire and being able to just relax. I know a lot of people would struggle with the size of this book but with the number of chapters and the fact that the chapters are quite small, it works, if it was over 900 pages, I think it would have dragged a bit. I liked the multiple chapters and that they are very distinct between the four of them and then the several characters within that region. I also enjoyed the love story within this book, and I wanted more of that.   

Again, like with the first book, the thing that stopped it being a five-star read was the big reveals and big twists were just slotted in and then brushed over. I was just waiting for the reaction to be like holy mother of Jesus and it just didn’t happen. 

This was an enjoyable read, but I was expected to be more of a big drop with the twists and turns. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and War

Moderate: Animal death, Sexual content, and Pregnancy

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Suicide

fairyollie's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

5.0

it's difficult to imagine anything topping priory, yet somehow, this book does. emotional, magical, tense, fantastical, wistful, and heartbreaking - no adjectives can do the beauty of this work justice. i cannot wait for the next installation in the heartwrenching, stunning Roots of Chaos world. i will dream of this book for the rest of my days.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Grief, Pregnancy, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Moderate: Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Religious bigotry, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Torture, and Stalking