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astrea13's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Drug abuse and Drug use
Minor: Homophobia, Incest, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship
leahsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
While I flew through the other books in this series in a day or two, it took me quite a while to get through this one. The book was a little slower moving at first than the previous ones, and the points of view were handled a little differently. Rather than bouncing back and forth between all of the characters, it was broken up between the sections, so that we only see a little bit of the picture at a time. It left me feeling as though I was always missing out on what was happening to other characters.
There was a LOT of stuff going on, all at the same time. All of the main characters have their own story line, and it didn’t really become clear how they interconnected until late in the book. The story is brutal, gory, and tense all throughout the book. There is no shortage of battles, and the pervading feeling I carried throughout my reading was “oh man, this is bad, how much worse can it get?” But of course, whenever I thought that, it got worse, every bloodydamn time. Not a single character escaped unscathed.
There was something so fundamentally off about reading Darrow’s chapters without Sevro by his side. It shows how much he really leans on him, and values the support he provides.
“A life of war is catching up with me. She doesn’t know the weight I carry. How much I relied on Sevro to help carry it.”
We get to see a lot more from Virginia’s POV than usual, and I really love her character. She’s brilliant, level-headed, and logical, but this book showcases more of her emotional side. Her loyalty, her passion, and her fears are on display for the first time, and it makes her so much more relatable.
“What good is being smarter than everyone if no one listens? Is this how my father felt? My brother? Is evil born of pure frustration?”
Over the course of the series, we’ve seen Lysander grow up. He didn’t have an easy go of things in the last 2 books, but I just struggled so much with him in this book. He learned a lot about life in this book, and was exposed to new experiences when he went to war for the first time. But I grew to like him a lot less over the course of this book.
“From a distance, death seems the end of a story. But when you are near, when you can smell the burning skin, see the entrails, you see death for what it is. A traumatic cauterization of a life thread. No purpose. No conclusion. Just snip.”
Sevro isn’t a huge part of the story in this book, and I was so disappointed not to see him as much as usual, since he’s one of my favorite characters in the entire series. He’s always been a little off, but he serves an important purpose in the Republic. Even if people don’t always agree with his methods, everyone knows that they’re effective:
“I’ll never get used to seeing the fear Sevro wakes in people. Deep down they know Darrow is operating on a framework of logic. No one, not even me, believes that Sevro is completely sane.”
As has become my custom when reading this series, I always consider changing my “gasp factor” to something else, because I don’t just gasp, I actually start exclaiming “HOLY SHIT!” Yeah, it’s serious. Once I got past the slow moving part, it just felt like the action start coming faster and faster and never stopped. The ending didn’t feel like an ending as much as a cliffhanger/to be continued, and I honestly wish that the next book had a release date so I’m not just left pining for a book without even having a clue when it is going to be available. The struggle is so real y’all. But I’m 10000% sure it’s going to break my heart into tiny little pieces, because this one already did. But I have no regrets because it’s amazing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Incest, Torture, Violence, and Cannibalism
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Rape and Slavery