Reviews tagging 'Grief'

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

84 reviews

chanlo1994's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

This book differs, in a good way, from its predecessor by focusing its conflict more on the supernatural elements than the political ones. It still felt like the same.universe but we got to see so much more that was left to be discovered from the first book. I enjoyed it very much. I'd love to see a book detailing the original Dreadmount eruption and the Snow Maiden

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Gore, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Grief, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Infidelity

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

lemonyanne'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
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

SUCH a good prequel to Priory of the Orange Tree!! So obsessed with this and could see it all so perfectly and cinematically. Somehow even better than POTOT and that’s saying something! Queer characters, POC rep and incredible fantasy plot ❤️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Pregnancy

Moderate: Child death, Death, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

bitter_critter's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Religious bigotry, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Kidnapping

mice_are_nice'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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Child death

chelly_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and War

lmfry's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Animal death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Death of parent, and Classism

Minor: Alcohol

readandfindout's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

4.0

Style/writing: 4 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Plot: 3.5 stars stars
Worldbuilding: 4 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Animal death and Religious bigotry

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, and Cannibalism

shottel's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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

4.75

A Day of Fallen Night is an improvement over The Priory of the Orange Tree in nearly every way. It would take a long time to enumerate all the positive changes, but a few in short: The pacing is better, the diversity is better, the appeal to modern audiences is better, the feminist themes are clearer, and even the cover art is better! Priory's Eastern branch lagged, but the branches are deftly balanced in Fallen Night. The book remediates Priory's odd penchant for mostly only mentioning the skin type of white characters, and features a significant number of LGBT+ (every letter of the acronym! and then some!) main and secondary characters. It draws on contemporary writing trends from other adult-genre books and, seemingly, fanfiction ("It's too cold, we have to cuddle for warmth") to excellent effect. And women's issues, most notably issues of pregnancy and birth, feature far more prominently, with the noble requirement to sustain a bloodline playing a role throughout the book.

This mandate to procreate establishes this book as far more clearly feminist (the idea that women have issues, interests, and stories worth hearing as much as men do) than its sequel. The need for nobility to sustain itself through childbirth is a recurring, central issue of the book, among other issues which concern women more than they do men, which also make frequent appearances.

In some ways, this book feels like it was written to an audience that might be into medieval court drama or epic adventures, but aren't too fond of the biases that pervade those genres. It is a grand epic, fantastically wrote, including women, LGBT+ characters, and people of color as equals to men, cishet, and white characters.

There are only a few places where it falters. The biggest problem I had is that the action scenes are confusing. I found myself frequently struggling to imagine the scene, re-reading portions over and over again. At first I thought it was a me issue, but after a half-dozen or so times, I figured it's probably not a me problem.

Additionally, I flagged two more minor concerns. First, with the presence of so many LGBT+ characters, the lack of transfeminine characters stands out oddly. Perhaps one or both of the nonbinary characters in the book are intended to be transfeminine, but there is no way to know this from the text. I don't make any guesses as to why; it just sits weirdly. Secondly, while *Priory* is a truly self-contained work, *Fallen Night* hints at an intention to write another book set between the two. This is the only change which I find to be a step backwards from *Priory*.

When layered inside an over 800 page grand adventure, these issues are minor, thus my score of 4.75/5. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in grand adventures, feminist fiction, fantasy, or fiction with LGBT+ main characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infertility, Miscarriage, Torture, and Kidnapping

Minor: Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, and Abortion

krisawesome's review against another edition

3.5

I liked the world building better in this prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree, and I thought the multiple storylines were better balanced here too. Although some of those storylines proved to be more emotional for postpartum me than I had anticipated… I’d actually started reading this book while I was still pregnant but wow was I not prepared for the extra feelings I’d have as a new mom about some of the themes.

Pacing is still kind of all over the place though, with the first part being too slow and the ending too fast.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

heatsab's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief