Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Dark by V.E. Schwab

47 reviews

mihrreader's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

This is a long book. It really gives a sense that the battle against Osaran (I probably spelled that wrong because I listened to the audiobook, and have never seen it written) is truly epic, a real slog. But I feel this book lacks the excitement of the first two. It doesn't have Lila's perspective discovering the glittery, awe-filled world of Red London, nor does it have the fun festival atmosphere of the Element Games. It's much darker, tonally and in terms of subject.  I found bouncing back and forth between Kell/Lila/Holland/Alucard and Ry to be somewhat distracting this time; Ry's story was rather boring to me. My interest also fell off at the end--everybody's endings felt jarringly ho-hum compared to the epic stakes of the struggle against Osaran.
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meheehee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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robin_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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? N/A

5.0

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glund_01's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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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cozy_tea_reader's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

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carefulfearanddeaddevotion's review against another edition

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adventurous funny 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? No

5.0

i would read a hundred books of just slice of life with these characters i love them so much <3333
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readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

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adventurous sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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giselle_tbr's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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sandwiiche's review against another edition

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

3.25

a good conclusion, but it definitely could've way better. however, i definitely enjoyed this WAYYY more than the second book. the only reason why it's 0.25 stars lower than the first is because i felt like the first book wrapped things up a lot better than this book. 
there were some really good things that happened, such as
holland's backstory, which really stole the show for me. i also enjoyed how high the stakes felt. my favourite moment was probably when alucard walked in on kell and lila; that was absolutely hilarious
the romance also ate, i enjoyed seeing them together 😮‍💨

however, there were many unanswered questions and unexplained things. like
kell's backstory? lila's backstory? why is she an antari? what is the full backstory of how black london got cut off from the rest of the londons? why on earth would grey london be mentioned multiple times but end up having no value at all? what was the point of all the random povs throughout the story? also, how did osaron come to be? idk man, i just wasn't impressed by him at all. it felt like another generic shadowy dark monster/demon. i was also expecting some big twist or something to happen at the end, but no, everything went pretty much according to plan.


overall, this whole series feels incomplete and paced really weirdly. it was quite fun tho, and i really enjoyed the magic system and world. at the end, i did end up liking the characters, especially
holland
but i don't think that ill be thinking of them anytime soon 🩸

i think this series had a lot of potential, but sadly it just ended feeling very lackluster to me
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imaginaryalchemist's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.25

The Shades of Magic Trilogy comes to a close in A Conjuring of Light. It was a fun fantasy ride! 

I'll start with the things I did like. First, I love the characters. They had good chemistry and played off each other well. I enjoyed the banter between Kell and Alucard. I know some people didn't like Lila, but I did, I thought she was fun and pretty badass. I saw the romance between her and Kell coming a mile away but I still enjoyed it. I thought they were good together.

Speaking of romance, I loved the subplot with Rhy and Alucard. I feel VE Schwab handled it tastefully. Speaking as a queer person, queer romance often feels like it's pandering to us. 

I really wanted more time with these characters. In my opinion, Schwab's character writing is pretty strong. They felt like they could be real people, even the background characters. Rhy ended up being my favorite.
I nearly started crying when his parents died, I felt so bad for him. I wanted to reach into the book and give him a hug. My boy suffered so much.


Now for some of my criticisms. For the story, I enjoyed it overall but felt it dragged at some points. The ship voyage in particular seemed to go on for a bit too long. 

I also had a lot of unanswered questions at the end.
I was hoping Kell would naturally remember his past - since he was told the memory spell should wear off over time and he burned the note on how to remove it. I wanted to know where he actually came from, and what his birth name was. I also don't recall Lila's missing eye being fully addressed. I had a theory that the black stone that appeared in book one would end up being the eye. I haven't read the sequel trilogy so I don't know if the question is answered there.


So, overall I really liked this trilogy! It was the first thing I'd read from VE Schwab and I'll definitely read more of her work in the future. 
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