Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Prison Healer

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni

126 reviews

kingkiller99's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This was a tense YA fantasy about a healer in a prison who is tasked with saving a rebel Queen. This was a fun read! While it had aspects very similar to TOG, I still really enjoyed it and would definitely like to read the next one as well. I was slightly wondering if the twist at the end would happen, but still not too expected.

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taliaalongi's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

3.75

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vcthompson's review against another edition

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dark emotional 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

4.75

The first twist I *mostly* saw coming but that final twist? I was shook. I don’t believe I’ve ever read a third person limited book where protagonist purposely hides information and leads the reader to believe a completely different narrative until the final reveal, so that was fun for me. I’ll be going into the second book picking apart the narrative to see if the protagonist is being fully truthful to us the readers, or if she’s leading me into another direction again until her next reveal.

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kylosten's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

3.5

I'm sure some people loved this book but I was not one of them. I only thought it was okay. I saw some people compare it to Throne of Glass (I read and hated ToG's first book and never continued the series) and can see some of the similarities. I liked this more than ToG, though.
Things I liked:
*Disability representation. There is an amputee and a character with a stutter. I don't have those disabilities to know for sure but to me it seemed like they were represented well and respectfully.
*Naari- Naari was by far my favorite character and the one I wanted to hear more about. I didn't really care about or connect with any of the other characters.
*The relationship between Kiva and Tipp. I liked Kiva's being an adoptive big sister to Tipp and their interactions together.

Things I didn't like:
*The repetition. I'm not sure if the repetition was supposed to be Kiva having obsessive thoughts or what but it got old fast and it added to the book feeling drawn out and longer than it needed to be.
*Predictable plot - Sometimes I can handle very cut and dry predictable plots but because of the repetition, underdeveloped characters, and pacing being slower than it felt like it should be, and use of tropes in the same way they've been used countless times before I often struggled to pay attention.
*The trials were a bit underwhelming. None of them were meant to rely on skill. Just meant to be impossible to make it through, which was the point, but it made them boring. High stakes (make it through or die) but no payoff.

I may give the second book a shot since it will be after Kiva's time in the prison and because sometimes the first in a series can be rough findung its footing but I'm not in any hurry to do so. I actually thought this was a debut novel, not the first in a series from a best-selling author.

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oliviawaligorski's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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lisa_m's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No

3.25

I've been looking forward to reading this book ever since I first heard of it and I finally did read it as a buddy-read. When I started this book I could barely remember what it was about, I just knew I used to really want to read it.

My thoughts on this book are quite complicated. I did not love the majority of the book. Most things that happened felt either like complete coincidences or out of our protagonists control. She was just there for the ride and the few decisions she did make did not make a lot of sense to me. She constantly needed to be saved and I just felt like I didn't have enough information about anything. A huge part of this book is 1. descriptions of the prison and how horrible it is in there and 2. Kiva trying to find a cure for this mysterious illness spreading around the prison.

When she finally finds out what happened to the dying prisoners it is by pure coincidence.

A very important part of this book are the 4 trials Kiva has to survive. I hoped that these would be interesting but instead it just felt like we're waiting for them to finally happen. The trials themselves are basically just Kiva being put into a situation that is impossible to survive, and then getting rescued.

The majority of the time while reading I was almost bored and waiting for something unique and surprising to happen. I did not understand any of the main characters or their relationships and we got barely any information about them. Things seemingly happened at random just to make a good story and to drive the plot forwards. Kiva also always made wrong assumptions about everyone to the point where you can pretty much assume all her assumptions are false.

BUT all of this boredom and indifference change in the last 50(?) pages. We finally get answers and information that make the whole story make sense. Certain actions get explained so they don't seem as random anymore and it's honestly very intruiging and I was hooked. My problem is that those last few pages don't make up for how I felt throughout the rest of the book.

I really liked the relationship between Kiva and Tipp. It was the one that made the most sense to me and I found it really sweet. I also liked Naari even though we got so little information and I always knew that there was something missing which made it frustrating to read. The same also goes for Jaren. For me personally the idea of keeping all relevant information until the end for the big 'aha' effect did not work out at all because it just made me more frustrated. At the end it just felt like I was being lied to throughout the entire book because important information has been kept from me which was the reason I did not understand what was going on or why people are reacting the way they do. So all in all it kind of feels like this book tried to be smarter than it is.

I think 3.5 stars is very justified considering all that. Still, now that I'm intruiged and I FINALLY know what's going on I will be reading the sequel as well. I hope it will keep up the intruige and perhaps I will really like the second book. It definitely has the potential to be good.

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