Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

13 reviews

emily_mh's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I went into this book fully expecting it to be completely centred around Nikolai and for him to be the star of the show, but this was definitely not the case in a surprisingly good way. Instead, the female characters absolutely SHONE in this book and completely stole the show. They were just incredible. It was a joy to read from Nina's perspective again, but it was actually Zoya who I fell in love with. She's had such an incredible character arc over the course of the Grishaverse and that was really revealed and expanded upon in this book. She's such a bad ass and doing a much better job of being the main character than Nikolai is. 

Being back in the Grishaverse was a delight, but so was reading Bardugo's writing again. It is wonderfully descriptive, and her plot development here is truly on another level in comparison to Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows. I really enjoyed seeing her expand her world-building, and she REALLY knows how to write incredible endings.

I docked a half-star for two reasons. The first is that I felt extremely disconnected from Nikolai, to the point where (shockingly, given he was one of my favourite characters in Shadow and Bone), I was dreading his POV chapters. The second is that for the first half of this book the plot felt a little directionless in that I didn't really know what the book was going to be about until like 250 pages in.

Also, the return of the Darkling kind of feels like a cheap enemy and I'm worried about how it's going to impact my enjoyment of Rule of Wolves.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Minor: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Child death, Confinement, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Excrement, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Alcohol

citymouse's review against another edition

3.0

Nina deserves to have her own series and her story entwined with Nikolai makes quite literally no sense. The book was good, but I would have preferred to see them as individual books rather than alternating between stories many lands apart. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Moderate: Child abuse, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, and Abortion

Minor: Animal death, Body horror, Infertility, Medical content, Religious bigotry, and Suicide attempt

kaylamoran's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Better than Shadow and Bone, but not as good as Six of Crows.  I'm glad Leigh stuck with the multiple perspectives set up, as I much prefer it.  However I will say that one of the storylines was much less interesting than the other ones, at least for me.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death, Miscarriage, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, and Medical content