nabecker13's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Bullying, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Death, Torture, Emotional abuse, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Grief
lizziaha's review against another edition
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Confinement, Death, Child abuse, Classism, Murder, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Animal cruelty, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Drug use, Animal death, and Death of parent
lubotomy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Violence, Confinement, Drug use, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Sexual content, and Abandonment
Minor: Outing, Sexual harassment, and Classism
talonsontypewriters's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Graphic: Murder, Kidnapping, Confinement, Classism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Violence, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Drug use, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Blood, War, Bullying, and Animal cruelty
Minor: Vomit, Sexual assault, Infidelity, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Torture
Drowning. Slut shaming. Starvation. Relationship between characters who are currently both adults, but almost definitely met when one was around 10 and the other was an older teenager/adult.g_geeks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The addition of a new magic system and whole new set of political relations was really cool. I am always a fan of political intrigue.
I also really enjoy the different approaches to relationships that all the characters have, and I particularly enjoyed the difference in attitudes regarding sex. It’s really cool to see these topics discussed, however briefly, in YA.
However I do think the pacing was a little off in this book. Some plot lines were dragged out too much, others not enough. I also think the structure could be improved upon with a multiple POV story because it was not as clear as it could have been. And the switching of the POVs was not always at the best time imo.
Omg also I’m so confused at who has what skin colour in these books. Maybe I’m just dumb or maybe it’s because of conflicting cover art but I stg some characters were described as very pale and now all of a sudden they have brown skin?? I now just look at fanart and trust the general consensus there haha but ig the character descriptions do confuse me sometimes.
Overall I still enjoyed it and will pick up the next book when it comes out. Just probably won’t reread this one as much as the others, particularly Graceling and Fire.
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Confinement, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Murder, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, and Death of parent
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
megansreading's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
2.0
Here are the good bits:
- Surprisingly, I enjoyed reading from the fox’s POV. He had the clearest motivations of all the characters. (Though I’m still not sure why he was heroically wanting to help Louisa, who despised him.)
- I enjoyed Hava and the exploration of her grace. It felt right to give her more page time she wasn’t able to have in Bitterblue and the different graces have always been one of my favorite parts of this world.
- Lastly, Though I know others disagree, I did enjoy Giddon and Bitterblue’s romance. It felt like they genuinely cared and relied on one another—even if they were separated for a lot of the book.
Spoiler
Now for the bad bits:
- This book takes forever to get started. I think I was around 150 pages in before it felt like things were actually happening. This boring pace continues for the rest of the book. It felt like too much was being thrown at me at once with no indication of where the plot was actually going. There was no clear goal and motivation that I could point to. And I’m not even sure everything was resolved by the end.
- Which brings me to the large cast of characters that were so forgettable. It’s a good thing there was a cast list in the back of the book because the side characters were so interchangeable that I never remembered who was who. I was missing the deep characterization from the previous books. Most of the side characters I didn’t hate…because I honestly didn’t know them well enough to care about them at all.
- Lovisa was one of my least favorite protagonists I’ve read in a long time. She was hypocritical, self-centered (except for when she threw in mentions of her brothers so we would have sympathy for her), and just rude. I understand she comes from a rough home life (see the next section on themes), but she did not seem to make any effort at all to be kind to people who were kind to her. I was sympathetic but not at all empathetic. She outright admits that she uses people for sex and she has next to no healthy relationships. There is not a single character, aside from her brothers that are just personality-less tools, that Lovisa cares about. It’s hard to be invested in her when she doesn’t have anyone in her life that she’s connected with. This also makes me not want to care about the other characters, as mentioned previously. She could be interesting as a side character, but it was not enjoyable to be in her perspective.
- There were so many themes going on in this book that it felt like none of them were properly explored. In her previous books, the author did a fabulous job exploring the effects/consequences of abuse and manipulative parental relationships. But that even seemed to fall flat for me.
- Normally I don’t bring this up in reviews, but let’s talk about the sex for a moment. For one, the on-page sex scenes were too explicit and numerous to allow this book to be YA. To be brief, Lovisa has a super unhealthy relationship with sex, and it is never condemned. It’s reasonable considering her upbringing that she would have an unhealthy relationship with sex, but it’s never portrayed as wrong that she uses people for sex and uses sex as a distraction/harmful coping mechanism for trauma. Sex has real emotional consequences, especially when used in an unhealthy way. Additionally, this is a huge break in tone from the previous books—and it is largely unnecessary to the plot.
- Along with themes, In one of Bitterblue’s POV chapters it’s mentioned twice that Lovisa seems to be contemplating suicide. This suicidal ideation was NEVER mentioned in any other chapters, not even in Lovisa’s POV. It didn’t even feel like a natural direction of Lovisa’s personality. It felt like a weird deviation and like throwaway lines about an incredibly sensitive, deep topic. We get one mention at the very end of the book from Lovisa about it, but overall it either needed to be developed more or cut completely.
Spoiler
- There is also one character who is entirely replaceable/unnecessary. There is not one thing Katu did that couldn’t have been done by someone else. Since everyone assumes he’s dead anyway, it isn’t like we’re eagerly hoping to find him. Plus we don’t even get any page time with him, so I don’t care that he’s missing. And are we going to pretend that Katu, with all the time he supposedly spent with Lovisa and the boys, didn’t know they were living in an abusive home??? I feel like the catalyst for this story would have been better if Saf or Prince Sky had been taken by the airship instead. I would have cared more and so would’ve Bitterblue.
Spoiler
There is probably more I could say but this will suffice. I’m really sad that this novel didn’t expand on this world in a way that I enjoyed. I almost wish the author had created this in a different, standalone world since there is such a large deviation in setting and themes.
I will not be rereading this book and I will probably not read any of the following books in this series.
Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Sexual content
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
cepbreed's review against another edition
- 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
Spoiler
Ranking of the books: Bitterblue, Winterkeep, Fire, Graceling
Song:
- Mirrorball - Taylor Swift
Graphic: Sexism, Stalking, Torture, Classism, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Confinement, Grief, Trafficking, Violence, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Death, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Murder, and Misogyny
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, War, and Sexual content
Minor: Drug use and Infidelity
mcgildey's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Murder, Death of parent, Child abuse, Animal death, Grief, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, and Death
Moderate: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence
miciahsreads's review against another edition
- 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
3.75
Graphic: Murder, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Kidnapping, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Drug use
Minor: War
merenguita's review against another edition
- 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
This is also true for the narrator, there are so many narrators! One of the first is Giddon and I honeslty didn't expect to like him that much, i always looked forward to his parts. I think his character arc flourishes in this installment and it's quite beautiful to see his sweetness.
As always there is some romance, although it's not the main plot and there are more intresting elements to the book. For exaple Lovisa and her family
Spoiler
specially once everything has unfolded and we can see the inner struggle, the conflict with her own identity and how, eventually, she takes her power backSpoiler
The only thing I would add is that I hope we can see more LGBTQ+ relationships between the main characters at some point in the future
Graphic: Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug use, Violence, Emotional abuse, and Confinement
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Sexual content