Reviews tagging 'Death'

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

132 reviews

ofclumsywords's review against another edition

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

A Day of Fallen Night is the second book in the Roots of Chaos series and takes place 500 years before Priory of the Orange Tree. In this book, we get to see first hand the events of the Grief of Ages, a year long war between the humans and Wyrms, something that was only discussed in minor detail in Priory of the Orange Tree. This book takes place over a four year period, following four characters located in different parts of this lush and beautiful world Shannon has created. Each character has their own story to tell while also being interconnected to the other main characters from the arrival of the dragons all the way through to the end of the Greif of Ages. This book is the very definition of an epic fantasy and stands out against all the other fantasy novels published before as something so unique and beautiful that I will never get tired of returning to this world. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

rachelh92's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

princessrory's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Infidelity, Sexual content, Medical content, Kidnapping, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Colonisation

gardens_and_dragons's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense slow-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? No

5.0

Fabulous complex characters, great story beats that all wove together in a satisfying way, tense politics and awesome dragons. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Death and Abandonment

Minor: Child death

bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

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

I adored A Day of Fallen Night even more than The Priory of the Orange Tree. The world is even richer, the pacing is smoother, and the action scenes are longer and more vivid. I loved exploring this era of this world. I loved every single one of the POV characters. I loved the parallels between Glorian and Dumai, the connections between Tunuva and Wulf, the friendship between Wulf and Glorian, and so much more. Lesbians of different ages are both riding and slaying dragons in this one. The political intrigue is excellent. The religious/magical/mythological elements are still a focus, but I'd say there are the main focus in Priory, whereas in ADOFN, the main focus is on motherhood and on the role of women in society.

There is definitely a slightly dissonance between the queernormativity of the world and the emphasis on heteronormative continuations of bloodlines, but it didn't bother me much.

Personally, I would recommend reading this one first. I think Priory would hit harder that way. I look forward to a reread in chronological order later down the line when the rest of the series is out, though Shannon has stated that they will all be designed to work as standalones.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Gore, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Pregnancy

Additional content warning for childbirth.

phoenixfire's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense slow-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and War

atalea's review

adventurous dark 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and War

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Death of parent, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Body horror

cjbrimmer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring sad 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: War and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

sophiesmallhands's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Child death and Religious bigotry

Minor: Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Classism

awkwardimagination's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring tense slow-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

3.5

I finished this last night in kind of a rush so that may have hurt my opinion a little, but I think it stands.

This book was kind of the opposite of the first book, in terms of literary elements. While the plot and pacing have the same strength, I found I didn't like the plot of this one as much as the second one. The fact that I knew so much about the world already also hurt it a little, because I found myself getting frustrated with a lot of the character motivations and actions. Speaking of characters; I liked the characters a lot more in this book then the first one. Oh my god- In the first one I really only formed a connection with Ead, in terms of mcs, and just really liked Tané. Loth felt flat to me and Niclays was just fucking annoying. My favourite characters in the first book were mainly background characters. In this one, I truly loved every mc. Glorian was my fav through out, I fucking adore her (false prophet aside), Dumai was also kickass and I liked her a lot. I felt sympathetic toward Tunuva and liked her well enough, but the other characters in her parts (Esbar and Canthe) bittered her story. I started the story feeling the same way about Wulf, as I did about Loth, but by the end of it Wulf was my guy - I fucking love him. 

God did I like how this ended, it was strong and honestly shocking I was not expecting some of the people who died to die. And dont get me wrong, while i did not like the plot of this book as much, does not mean this had a bad plot; I very much enjoyed getting to watch the setup of all the pieces for Priory of the Orange Tree (except for Tané's jewel that confuses me) and seeing all the places and people that we only heard about. God, I love me some world building!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Vomit, Kidnapping, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Animal death and Suicide