Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas

40 reviews

torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

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: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

fr0styme11o's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book is just, insanely good. I can't even describe it. It has left me speechless.

The action in this is very exciting and I can tell you that there is quite a lot of it. It's incredibly enjoyable to read and I'm always anticipating for the next action packed scene.

The characters individual personalities are something I find very intriguing in this, too. Everyone is different. Of course they are, but you get a very clear idea of who they're like as a person.

Not to mention that Sam literally chattered my heart into a thousand pieces. I don't understand how SJM can simply get rid of a character in a blink of an eye. Or even get rid of a character that literally just appeared, like WHAT?! I LOVED HIM! I'm devastated. :(

Anyway, it was really entertaining to read and a great adventure I wish I could experience again!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Death, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Minor: Cursing and Vomit

unboundbooklover's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Slavery, Torture, and Alcohol

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Vomit

littlered22's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious sad 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

3.5

Slower than the other tog books but definitely a necessary book. I read it as #3 in the series so I already knew the fmc. But this gave me some background and insight. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, and Alcohol

Minor: Death of parent

meeklovestoread's review

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

3.75

You know I started this book series years and years ago when I was a kid and never finished (probably read like the first four). This was wayyyyy before there was a booktok and that the rudimentary stage of booktube. So, I honestly didn't know this was such a hyped and beloved series until about a year and a half ago. Now when a series is as hyped as this one, especially this author, I'm always skeptical so I never touched but my favorite YouTubers love this series so I finally decided to finally give it a shot.

Now I obviously started with this one because that's how I remember starting it when I was a child. Had no idea there was such confusion on the reading order (more on that later). Honestly if this was the actual first book in the series I would've stopped here and wouldn't have picked this next book up. I wasn't really vibing with Sarah J. Maas's writing here. I've just read better (but I hear she wrote this when she was 16 so I hope the writing improves as the series goes along).

I think it was nostalgia from when I read this book when I was a child, but I remember it being much better than it was. I read all the novella straight across in two days. I wasn't really vibing with the first one. I thought it was a little boring. The second one was slightly better. It was not until the 3rd one that I felt like I was really getting into the story. I'm assuming the people introduced in these novellas will be important for later books. Now one of my main grievances with this book is the lack of world building, but considering this isn't the intended first book, I'm gonna let that go, however, I really hope there is more adequate world-building in "Throne of Glass" because there were so many places and names and things being thrown around I was struggling to figure out what time period they were and where are the places were as well as what the politics and the conflict meant.

Also, as a child, I remember sobbing to this book when

Sam died. I was devasted. I visually remember 11-year-old me sobbing her eyes out when he died. And for some reason I remember him dying on page not off page how it is in the book.

In addition to that, I felt like her "relationship" with Sam was so lackluster. He's only in this book about 55%-ish of the time and half of the time it's literally spent with them arguing and Celaena contemplating if she even has feelings for him or not. I definitely think their "romance" happened extremely quickly and there was honestly no merit as to why they were together. Even as I was reading the book, I was wondering why Sam even liked her to begin with considering she's been nothing but rude to him up until recently. I also think this book is a product of its time because the whole "I've loved you the entire time" trope was most definitely overused, overdone, and in my opinion a sign of lazy writing. If you have to ascribe to this trope to make your love story convincing then that's a problem.

Now I know it seems like I'm harping on this book, but I honestly didn't hate it. I even teared up a bit and a certain part and enjoyed my time reading the last three novellas. Overall, this book was fine, however, because this book series is so hyped I was expecting much more considering how much people praise Sarah J. Maas for how much of a "mastermind" she is. I'm hoping for better for the future books. As for the reading order, although I just restarted this series after almost a decade, I'd say the reading order is put at the reader's discretion. If you want to read it in the chronological order of events then I say read this first as it gives insight as to why  Celaena is the way that she is in "Throne of Glass". And if you don't want to be taken out of the story you suggest reading this first, but overall it depends on you.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Cursing, Slavery, Violence, Blood, and Grief

Minor: Alcohol and Injury/Injury detail

marahill14's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

The third and fourth novellas were my favorites

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Murder, and Alcohol

indigo_fox's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

This was a fun read! I found that it easily captured my attention and there were times when I didn't want to put it down. I love the writing style, and the characters were very interesting. I didn't like the MC at first but she grew on me. I think out of the four novellas The Assassin and the Deseret was my favorite. A lot of the characters there were odd and I found that enjoyable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Slavery, Vomit, and Alcohol

Minor: War

faithsbookreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.25

SAM😭💔

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

spatterson7's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Cursing, Drug use, Sexual content, Excrement, Vomit, Death of parent, and Alcohol

quietlex's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I didn’t love or hate it. It seemed pretty lackluster and predictable at times. I didn’t believe the romance between Celena and Sam, it felt forced and uninspired. I think this book was more focused on the different missions and progressing the plot rather than developing interesting and complex main characters. I’m hopeful that the rest of the series will build on who Celena is and why she thinks and acts the way she does. Quite disappointed with the lack of spice as well. Not the best start to the series, in my opinion. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism