Reviews tagging Drug use

The Fever King, by Victoria Lee

9 reviews

syncup's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Gore, Xenophobia, Murder, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Cursing, Death of parent, and Gun violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Pedophilia

Minor: Eating disorder

the_planetarywanderer's review

dark tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism and Murder

Minor: Drug use, Adult/minor relationship, and War

owenblacker'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
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

 The Fever King is a YA dystopian postapocalyptic m/m romance, also about race & immigration. I’ll quote the blurb directly:

In the former United States, 16-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense [and founding revolutionary leader of the state] and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks — refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son — cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful — and the way forward becomes less clear.

Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.

I quite enjoyed the book — the storyline was interesting enough and the characters are engaging and faceted without being too irritating, which I can sometimes find a problem with YA if I’m not in quite the right mood. But it definitely suffered from me reading it immediately after Mira Grant and I had forgotten quite how much I love her work.

CN list from the author: violence, intergenerational trauma and genocide, immigration, abuse, parental death, death of a child, mental health and suicide, slut-shaming, ableist language, drug and alcohol abuse, emetophobia. More details on her website. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, War, and Xenophobia

CN list from the author: violence, intergenerational trauma and genocide, immigration, abuse, parental death, death of a child, mental health and suicide, slut-shaming, ableist language, drug and alcohol abuse, emetophobia. More details on her website: https://victorialeewrites.com/the-fever-king-content-warnings/

tkhenry99's review

4.0

A strong start to 2022! I don’t usually go for sci-fi very often, so I appreciated the simple and straightforward sciencey parts. I feel like a lot of sci-fi is overly complicated or just skips the explanations entirely. Dara and Noam were great characters, but I wish their relationship had been fleshed out a bit more. I could maybe maybe understand why Dara is so insta-lovey but Noam really didn’t seem to have much of a connection with him besides thinking he’s hot. It did tend to be pretty predictable

Spoiler

(you can see mind control coming from the very beginning)

and some parts felt underdeveloped.

Spoiler

Dara and Ames are both addicts, but somehow it doesn’t seem to actually affect them/their health/wellbeing/powers? And Dara being raped by Ames’s dad for years was a weird inclusion…… especially to turn around and have him go “I did it as a political thing” without any additional explanation……

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Death, Hate crime, Racism, Suicide, and Xenophobia

Minor: Child death, Drug use, Pedophilia, Rape, Vomit, War, and Genocide

cindythenerd's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense

• 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: Child abuse, Violence, Genocide, Death of parent, Child death, Mental illness, Vomit, Drug use, Alcohol, Body horror, Murder, Cursing, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Xenophobia, Pedophilia, Rape, Torture, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Body shaming

Minor: Addiction and Suicide

dani_c's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.25

The Fever King was chosen for my book club and is not something I would usually read, especially during a pandemic. That said, I was pleasantly surprised. While Fever King absolutely has its dark, morally grey moments (and a LOT of them), and was realistic in the ways people treat each other, it was unrealistic enough about the pandemic itself that I was able to appreciate it. The magic in this world isn't as developed as I would prefer, but perhaps how magic works is better explained in the sequel. 
Character wise, I struggled with Noam. There were many times where his angst absolutely read like a YA novel, even though there's plenty going on in the story itself that begs the attention of an older audience. That said, the confusion and uncertainty his character goes through was very realistic and imaginable if a kid similar to him found themselves in the positions he's put in throughout the novel. I just wanted MORE from him. 
I won't be reading the sequel, but for a YA fantasy dystopian novel I was pleasantly surprised that I finished the book and didn't hate it. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death of parent, Death, Genocide, Racism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, and Murder

Minor: Antisemitism, Confinement, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Medical trauma

korieography's review

adventurous dark 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? Yes

4.5

i really enjoyed reading this book! i’ll be honest there were just a couple parts that bored me but there were so many more moments that intrigued me so much that i didn’t want to put the book down. this is the first book i used an audiobook for and it was really good! if you like audiobooks, i recommend it!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, and Xenophobia

Minor: Murder and Physical abuse

xoodlebooks's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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: Confinement, Violence, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Genocide, Mental illness, Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Eating disorder, Xenophobia, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Kidnapping

Minor: Antisemitism, Torture, Medical trauma, Ableism, Chronic illness, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Racism

oliverthegame's review

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• 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: Death, Child death, and Suicide

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Vomit, Pedophilia, Rape, Grief, and Drug use