Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo

192 reviews

britwalsh16's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

I loved this book! Kaz & Inej’s complicated feelings for eachother are just so relatable! And Jan Van Eck is just a perfect villain! You have to hate him, and how he can treat his son that way makes me want revenge on him too. This book just keeps you invested in the characters stories, and their want for revenge and payback, and you just spend the whole book waiting to see how they get it!

Spoiler

but I can’t believe they killed Matthias!!! Matthias & Nina we’re my favorite! Enemies to lovers, and their hopes to make the world a better place like Nina did with Matthias! I can’t believe they didn’t get their happy ending!!! No one was supposed to die! 😭

 
No Mourners, No Funerals. 🖤🖤🖤

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Gun violence, and Blood

Moderate: Slavery, Stalking, Trafficking, Hate crime, Injury/injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Torture, and Addiction

Minor: Rape and Sexual assault

olivia_v's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

I cannot fathom the brain power it took to come up with every twist and turn and exactly-thought-out schemes in this duology. 

Just when you think you have a grasp on the plans and what’s happening, it’s cleverly revealed to be something else all along. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Blood, Grief, Death, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Injury/injury detail, Kidnapping, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Gun violence, and Murder

just_a_bibliophile's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

After having this book sitting on my shelf for the past few months, I finally decided to pick it up before the next Shadow and Bone series comes out on Netflix, and in all honesty, I don't know why I was putting off reading this for so long. I found Six of Crows so incredibly slow and hard to get in to, but there was something about Crooked Kingdom that was just a billion times better. Following on from Six of Crows, the next book in this duology continues Kaz and his crew's story, with the six back on the streets of Ketterdam.

The world-building was BEAUTIFUL. I think especially as this is the fifth Grishaverse book I've read now, I really appreciated how the whole world is just so intricately detailed and well thought out. There's something so magical about it all.

The characters were where things really got interesting. I adored all six of them. I felt like the characters had been developed on such a new level in Crooked Kingdom - we really got to understand them and their motives, and they all had such distinctive traits and quirks.  They all had such compelling friendships and relationships with each other, and again, it was just truly magical to read about. The sheer complexity of some of these relationships was explored in such a clever way, and I really loved how all of the characters had their own unique ways of expressing themselves and their love for each other. The six of them together had such a powerful dyanmic.

While I did think some parts of it dragged a little too much, it did feel like such an incredible amount happened in this. It was absolutely full of twists and turns and everything unexpected and spontaneous, definitely keeping me on my toes. On the flip side, I did think that other parts were skimmed over way too quickly

Spoiler

, such as the death of a certain someone

, so for me, the pacing was slightly off generally: some parts too slow, some too fast. My only other complaint was that there was just something lacking in this. I'm honestly struggling put my finger on it, but I felt the same way about Six of Crows, there was just something missing from this that made me not entirely love it as much as I could have. I think maybe it's the lack of connection I feel I have with the characters? As much as I love reading about them, I just didn't feel I could truly empathise with them in the way that I usually can with other characters. As irritating as this is, I do absolutely adore these characters' stories and individual developments throughout the whole duology.

Absolutely worth a read for any fantasy fan, and I'm actually quite interested in reading some of the next Grishaverse books after this.

Rating: 3.5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Gun violence, Slavery, Torture, and Trafficking

Minor: Sexual assault

ynkm's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Kidnapping, Violence, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Death and Injury/injury detail

kendal_reads'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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Torture, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Ableism and Kidnapping

Minor: Forced institutionalization

peggy_racham's review against another edition

4.75

 I fell in love with this book from the start.It was briliant to see what "brick by brick" looked like. All the couples, descriptions of falling in love and getting closer, the scheme, is so well writen. Reading about these character slowly dealing with their trauma and being more themselves, its the best feeling. (The moderate TW's are not super explicit and are brief. Only blood and injury are current events the rest are flashbacks or memories.)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Slavery, Injury/injury detail, Child abuse, Confinement, Body horror, Rape, and Blood

Minor: Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Confinement, Sexual assault, Panic attacks/disorders, Xenophobia, and Cursing

onefineelephant's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

10/10. I loved this book so much. Definitely my favorite Leigh Bardugo book that I've read so far. I laughed, I cried (especially at the end), and I gasped. I love found family books, especially fantasy ones so this was definitely up my alley. Since I'm such an avid reader, I don't usually get surprised by plot points but I loved that with this book, I never knew where it was going next. Wylan, Jesper, Nina, Matthias, Kaz, and Inej will have my heart forever.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/injury detail, Gun violence, Murder, Violence, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Kidnapping, Blood, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Torture

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Rape, Trafficking, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Slavery

infjkiki's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Trafficking, Gore, Violence, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Confinement, Grief, Kidnapping, Panic attacks/disorders, and Torture

Minor: Addiction and Classism

dkaps's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Kidnapping, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Ableism, and Addiction

Minor: Death of parent, Drug abuse, War, Drug use, Alcohol, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Injury/injury detail, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, Gaslighting, Adult/minor relationship, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Racism, Slavery, and Torture

risaleel's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, Drug use, Slavery, Violence, and Addiction

Moderate: Grief, Mental illness, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, and Gun violence