Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Duistere Dageraad by Jay Kristoff

5 reviews

dragonaion's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

3.5

Unfortunately, while the first two of the trilogy seemed to be written back to back, this book does not follow the trend. In fact, the author almost committed the worst sin an author can make; writing himself into the story. Kristoff walked the line and while he didn't write himself in the story, he did reference and mock his own writing style when he

put his books into the story, have his characters read the same books we are, and used them as plot tools

. The romance was wonderful and well placed in the first book, but the romances started in Godsgrave seemed forced to start and continued only to feel like mashed (not grinding, that would imply too much cohesion) gears.

Nothing like having a awkward living-then-dead love triangle where the boy kills himself a second time to let the other two girls come back to life to let them forever in a "cabin by a lake" while he's moping alone in the underworld!

The trilogy will end with this book, there's definitely nothing else, and that's arguably for the better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Suicide, Torture, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Slavery, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Fire/Fire injury

karalara's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

lettigirl101's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Self harm, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

bluejayreads's review against another edition

dark

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

The first two books in this series were bloody, violent, and fun. They’re not the kind of thing anyone would describe as a literary masterpiece, but if you like your fluff reading on the gory side, they’re quite entertaining. This one went off that track quite a bit. 

That’s not to say it wasn’t violent or bloody, because it was. But it was very much toned down (although with this series, “toned down” still puts it in the “very gory” category). Darkdawn was much more about mythology and gods, why darkin are the way they are, the nature of family, and the complexities of father-daughter relationships. 

Normally I love cool stuff about gods and fantasy religions, so it’s weird for me to say I didn’t like it as much, but I didn’t. I was expecting something high-energy and brutal, not too complex, and focusing on Mia’s goal to murder these specific people as well as anyone who gets in her way. Instead there are god squabbles and Chosen One save-the-world stuff and everything and everyone trying to convince Mia to give up the revenge she’s spent the past decade working towards and suddenly be altruistic and self-sacrificing. It just wasn’t realistic. On top of that, the gods weren’t all that interesting, I strongly dislike love triangles, the Absurdly Powerful Protagonist trope that I loved from previous books was nearly absent, and the climactic fight was boring more than anything. 

I did finish it, and though the tone of this review may indicate otherwise, it was engaging enough that I overall enjoyed the reading experience. It was just a dramatic departure from the core of the previous two books, going from Mia’s personal bloody revenge to fate-of-the-world deity shenanigans. It felt like a low-energy, large-scope ending to a high-energy, small-scope story. 

This isn’t a bad book, and I didn’t hate it. I just had hoped for the conclusion to the action-packed, violent delight of the Nevernight trilogy to be different, and I guess a little more, than it is. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal death and Body horror

Minor: Infidelity

Bury your gays

finkydink's review against another edition

Got to chapter 35, author killed off

Ash

. I'm sick of the

bury your gays

trope, so I decided to stop reading. I also was not a fan of how "meta" the book became. After 2 books of great storytelling, the finale fell short.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Excrement

Minor: Incest