Reviews tagging 'Death'

La quinta stagione by N.K. Jemisin

314 reviews

dkamada's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny inspiring mysterious fast-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Loved having a two person book club for this with Meghan, so many good reveals!

Marked that there are moderate racial slurs, but it depends if you are looking to avoid specific racial slurs used in our world vs the concept of people using racial slurs if that makes sense. I.e. there are racial slurs specific to this book that are used frequently

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Animal death, Child death, and Cannibalism

lua_'s review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

I read this book after seeing several people recomend it and hype it up, and I think my mistake was going in with too high expectations.

N.K. Jeminsin created an extremely interesting and complex wolrd, with a unique magic system and a pretty exciting premise, but despite all that, to me, the actual story felt completely bland.

My biggest issue with the book was the main characters, Damaya, Syen and Essun,

them being all the same person, you can see why all of them bothered me the same

so maybe if you like them more you might enjoy the book a little better. But to me it felt like,  mainly Syen, was completely incapable of complex thought, she constantly avoids actually thinking about the problem beyond a surface level, to a point that it gets very frustrating,

the god damn volcano in Allia was SUCH an obvious trap, that I feel like after dealing with the guardians and the Fulcrum her whole life it was just so frustrating seeing her think "wow why would the fulcrum leave things like this" and then REFUSE TO THINK MORE ABOUT IT

there are several times in the novel that Syen's Pov says "she couldn't think" and it was just really frustrating. Essun at the very least has a very good reason to refuse thinking in the beginning of the book, but that also gets frustrating after a while. A few times it just felt like the main characters avoided thinking (not asking questions, not reaching conclusions, not making strategies) just so the plot could progress, wich to me made it fell like all three characters weren't active in their own storylines. The world building is very intense wich I do usually like, but in the book there just wasn't a storyline above it that made me actively exited to keep reading.

I do really like the conflicts and the depiction of the abusive and toxic relations between the Guardians and the orogenes in their charge, N.K. went above and beyond with it, and every scene with Damaya and her Guardian had me at the edge of my sit. The mystery of Hoa was also fun to try and figure out, and the dynamics between Syen and Alabaster felt deep and complex in the most interesting of ways

wich only makes Alabaster's state by the end of the book seem more like a waste of potential to me, I really liked him

for the first half of the book most of what happened with Damaya's storyline caught me by surprise, which made it very fun to read.

But at the end it just didn't feel like a lot actually happened during the book, very few moments during all three storylines felt exciting or had any action, so maybe if someone liked slower and less action packed books they might like this this lack of moments, but it just wasn't my cupof tea.

Also this book is VERY heavy on wolrd building and N.K. makes very little effort to explain it all, so I definitely don't recomend it for people who aren't used to lore heavy fantasy.

Overall, to me, it felt like a really interesting world with a very bland main character

The ending does get a little more intense, and leaves off at a cliffhanger, wich is mostly of the reason for me to give the book a 3,7 instead of 3,5. I think I'll read the rest of the series, but I'll definitely have to change my expectations and mindset before starting book two, so that I'm ready for a slow series of tragic happenings, rather then an intense character fighting her way trough events. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Grief

torilaird's review against another edition

Too much child abuse

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Xenophobia, Trafficking, and Gaslighting

So much child abuse.

hyithia's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

• Took a while for me to get into, probably about 30% of the way into the book I started to grow more interested in two of the storylines (
  Syenite and Damaya
  ). This slow burn is why I am only giving this book 4 stars. Maybe this is personal preference, but I prefer it when books hook me instantly. 
• Enjoyed the writing style
• Captivating setting
• Unique point of view that took me a while to appreciate
• Very mysterious plot. There are lots of aspects to this first book in the series that are left as unknowns. This may be frustrating to some, but I found it fun to keep trying to figure out the ins and outs of this world and the magic system
• Speaking of the magic system, it is very unique and grows to be more and more complex as the book goes on.
• I loved the twist at the end when we found out that Essun, Damaya, and Syenite are all the same person. I started to piece it all together just before it was revealed, which was gratifying.
• This book is just as much a dystopia as it is fantasy
• Diverse characters
• Very dark

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Hate crime

Minor: Bullying, Genocide, and Cannibalism

sammymilfort's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

• 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Abortion, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

dahliapyne's review against another edition

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual content, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Gaslighting

Minor: Cannibalism

A 2 year old

is found beaten to death

at the very beginning of the book. Some characters disappear and we assume they died. People die from natural disasters, mostly non-characters but a few we meet. Some characters kill other characters ruthlessly and sometimes emotionlessly. The violence/injury/gore level is not extreme, but the instances that do happen are more detailed than many fantasy novels and very icky. The F word is used frequently. Characters have sex, but most scenes are not really very descriptive; however there were 1-2 very explicit scenes (consensual,

polyamorous

). One act of pedophilia is implied, another is described by one character when accusing another. Neither technically occurs on screen but the description by the one character could be triggering (does not go into huge detail but does use graphic wording). For me personally it created more of a visual image in my mind than I want. Sexual assault besides this is the relatively non-graphic scenes of

two slaves who are ordered to have sex with each other, rather than one person wanting it

. There is clear racism against a group of people who are slaves, and they do use a fantasy-word racial slur, but characters

are reclaiming the word.

I wasn’t sure if fantasy-word racial slurs for fantasy-races should be included under the content warnings listed above or not. If this were a movie it would be rated R, but short segments (gore, the 1-2 explicit sex scenes) could be removed and make it PG-13. Definitely would not recommend for young teens without supervision but it’s not a YA book

phan_boy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

Interesting magic and world building. Great characters and character development. The plot is emotional and impactful. Overall this is one of the best fantasy stories I have read in a while

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Racism, Violence, Grief, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Hate crime and Sexual content

Minor: Bullying and Cannibalism

maryellen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Slavery, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

li_veiros's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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? No

5.0

I haven't read something I loved this much in a long time, can't wait for the second one. Besides the amazing worldbuilding and interesting structure, which I always enjoy, it has great representation! Probably the best representation I've read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Blood, and Death of parent

Moderate: Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Pregnancy

Minor: Rape, Vomit, Cannibalism, and Dysphoria

it has pirates! Which is very cool.

tash9's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, and Mental illness

Minor: Slavery, Xenophobia, and Cannibalism