Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Três Coroas Negras by Kendare Blake

40 reviews

rosenau's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Vomit, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

aoifes_books's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

3.25

Three Dark Crowns follows three triplet sister queens, who all have an equal chance to the crown. All three possess different types of magic - Mirabelle an elemental, Kat a poisoner and Arsinoe a naturalist. All three raised together as kids until they're moved away to practice and hone their magic skills. After their sixteenth birthday, the queens must begin the fight to the death with one winner to be crowned Queen. The book follows the sisters from their birthday celebrations until the Awakening.

The story jumps between the three sisters, and Jules, Arsinoe's friend. The story is very character driven and honestly it takes a while to get into. The first 40% of the story is slow and a little boring, I'm not sure if it was listening to the book and not reading it but I had to go back over things and re-listen to parts. The most interesting and captivating character to me was Jules, a fabulous naturalist who appears to be the strongest one to come around in decades. She's maybe the most fleshed out character who was written from the start, with the three sisters needing the majority of the book to become engaging. 

I do wish the blurb was more obvious that this wasn't about the fight between the sisters - that seems to be the following book(s) - and the first book sets up the world. The book is basically a world building exercise, with characters, the magic system, history and background to how we get to the end of the book. The last 15-20% of the book is very interesting and captured my attention; it was just a small struggle to get there. It is a slow-paced book, so if you aren't into those I would not recommend. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence and Blood

addi_w31's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence

bookishgoob's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

this book was a beautiful fantasy that wasn’t incredibly confusing in the world building. the perspectives of each place and how they train up their queens was so interesting to see. i’m so glad i started this series

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail

martereadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

emily_mh's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

3.0

A sentence that sums up how I feel about this book is: I'm glad I didn't buy it, but I am interested in what happens next. The best part about the book was its premise of three queens vying for the throne, and there was some good world-building surrounding this. Everything else was a bit meh. I didn't like the omniscient narration style, or that it was done in present tense. I think it was the reason behind the poor characterisation of literally every character (but ESPECIALLY Katharine's. Her POVs were... so bland). There was just no internal world for any of them. I was expecting big reactions from the sisters meeting for the first time in ten years, but it was literally "oh there's my sister on her platform" or "oh my sister's talking to me in this forest" which was incredibly disappointing. Flat characters also meant that all the romances fell flat. It was very insta-love. And on top of the characters being meh, the plot had no direction beyond the fact that Beltane was gonna happen in a couple of months. Literally nothing of consequence happened between the beginning and that point. And you'd expect with the whole book leading up to the Quickening, that event would have some impact. But it was over in 10 pages tops. On the whole I was just expecting a lot more from this book. What partially saved it was the unique world-building and the fact that I wasn't dreading picking it back up when I put it down - it was actually somewhat enjoyable and definitely easy to read. That's enough to make me pick up the sequel!

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Confinement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Excrement, and Alcohol

barry_benson's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Torture, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Vomit

bubothereader's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I read this during most of my honeymoon—admittedly, a weird choice. 

I really liked this first book—it’s atmospheric, has interesting characters, and a magical system that I’d love to see on film. I did find it a tad predictable; however, I still enjoyed it immensely. Definitely one of my best 2021 reads. I plan on picking up the rest of the series at some point, As I’m very interested in how everything will go.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

claragweny's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

3.0

An interesting, though poorly described, world and a very compelling ending. I'll probably continue reading the series but I hope that Blake builds the world around them some more in the other books. 

I can't really recommend reading this without going through all the content warnings. It is very triggering in many, many ways.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Infidelity, Sexual content, Abandonment, and War

soswiin's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

2.0

i tried so hard to like this book. you have no idea

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, and Vomit

Moderate: Body shaming and Eating disorder