Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

89 reviews

david_slack110507's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective 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

I had an awful reading slump whilst reading this book and I feel like that may have affected my rating for this book (Even though I am giving it 5 stars, it is more of a just about 4.5 stars because of the reading slump and the reading slump only type of situation) but even with that I still majorly enjoyed this and my reading experience cemented the Grishaverse series and particularly the Six of Crows duology as some of my favourite series of books. If I had been more consistent with reading I would have liked Crooked Kingdom even more than I already do. 

I absolutely love the Crows and their dynamics with one another. It expanded on them even more from Six of Crows, particularly with the relationships of Kaz and Inej, Jesper and Wylan, Jesper and Kaz, Nina and Inej etc. It was so fun seeing all of the characters continue to flourish and to expand upon their already established relationships as well as build new ones and it was one of the main things that kept me coming back even with my reading slump in full force. I liked the endings we got for our Crows as they felt both satisfying and open-ended enough to allow for a sequel or for them to show up in other stories like Nina in the King of Scars duology. 

The plot, while I don't think I loved it as much as the Ice Court heist, was still very interesting and was not what I expected going off of the ending of Six of Crows and where this book started off as the plot twists felt cleverly planned out and implemented without feeling like they were done to simply progress the story lazily. The last part of the book - Part 6: Action & Echo - was extremely interesting and one of my favourite parts of the boom because the chaos flowed very nicely to make it an unpredictable, fun, and memorable reading experience. Matthias' death was unexpected and while it wasn't extremely emotional for me as Matthias is one of my lesser favourite Crows (though I do still really like him as a character), it was still effectively done and I'm interested in seeing how this will affect Nina's story going into King of Scars. 

Overall, I really liked this book and while I do feel like reading this through a reading slump affected my opinion on the book, though to no fault of the book, I think it was very successful and met my expectations on how to end this duology yet left it in an interesting place to open up into another book to make it a trilogy, which I would not be totally against. I'm most likely going to continue on with my Grishaverse binge and read Nikolai's duology with Zoya and Nina, King of Scars, next as well as hopefully soon rewatch season 1 of Shadow and Bone as well as finally watch season 2 for the first time as I've been waiting until I finished this book as I have been unsure whether or not they included elements of this and Six of Crows into season 2 or not.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Gaslighting, Abandonment, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Ableism, Bullying, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Vomit, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Classism

_ami_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad 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: Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, and War

Moderate: Death, Slavery, Torture, and Trafficking

Minor: Ableism, Child death, Domestic abuse, Vomit, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic

entityj's review

adventurous 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Death, Drug use, Torture, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Gun violence, Vomit, Grief, Pregnancy, and Pandemic/Epidemic

cnannery19'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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Child death, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

bubblegum_or_books's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional lighthearted tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Blood

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, and Grief

Minor: Slavery and Pregnancy

little_white's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction and Chronic illness

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child death, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Death of parent, Pregnancy, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

themoodreader's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-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

Minor: Addiction, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

axel_p's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

I have no idea why it took me so long to read this book.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

toastyghosty13's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-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

2.0

I wanted to like this book since I somewhat enjoyed the book that came before it (Six of Crows), although I disliked the main Grisha series. I am utterly convinced that Leigh Bardugo has this horrid ability to create the most original and interesting characters, and then knows fuck all what to do with them. I have realized this after reading 5 of the Grisha books, since I felt obligated to finish after buying the boxset for $20 at Costco. The only character I found to be dull and lifeless was

Mal from the mainline series

. The rest of the characters have such interesting backgrounds that made me want to read more about them and see them use their abilities & experiences in subsequent events, yet I fond a lot of what they actually did to be lackluster and had me wishing for a lot more.

I especially lost it during this book when

Matthias was killed off for no reason other than shock value. Kaz dying would have been a much better death rather than Matthias, who has a 14 year old trembling boy sneak up on him and kill him despite being a highly trained soldier with years more experience. This was disappointing and ruined my day, because this is character I wanted to see more of, especially with the dynamic of his relationship with Nina since they started off as mortal enemies.

 

I also found the follow up plot from Six of Crows to be pretty boring in comparison. The Ocean's 11 type plot from Six of Crows was enjoyable enough and I did not dislike it. I originally gave it a 3.5/5 and have since changed it to 3, since I clearly desperately wanted to like it after loving each of the unique and interesting characters we were introduced to. I wholeheartedly feel the same about the mainline Grisha series following Alina Starkov, where

the Darkling is such an interesting and nuanced character yet, at the end, Leigh really does boil him down to "lonely different emo kid lashing out at everyone even though he's like 30 now because he wants a friend". There were so many opportunities to make the Darkling a fluid character that was between good and evil, and it really felt like it would take that direction in the entire first Grisha book, but then the rest of it was just status quo "shadow guy evil" and really boring to me. His character was constantly going back and forth between doing something bad, but it was for the greater good, which could have made for interesting plot where you want the bad guy to be good, but that was completely skipped over.

This has taken a tangent away from reviewing only Crooked Kingdom to ranting about my frustrations with Leigh Bardugo's imbalance in writing quality and character development. The main Grisha line is bleh but quick enough that you can read it all in under a week. The Crow's duology is much longer despite only being 2 books so I recommend reading the main Grisha line to see if you like it first. This way, you won't be stuck in an internal battle having to convince yourself to finish a book after starting it 2 months ago because you are already 55% of the way through. I started reading the Grishaverse books because I watched the first 6 episodes of the tv show on Netflix, and this is an exception to the rule of books being better than the cinematic adaptation. Ben Barnes is a great actor, and he's hot, so you're better off there. You also get the main Grisha line with the Crows duology all in one show, and the other actors for the Crows characters are superb and really bring the characters to life in new plotlines that are not even part of the books. 

TLDR; skip all the Grisha books, just watch the show. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, and Blood

Minor: Pregnancy

jp1920's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

Minor: Child abuse, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Abandonment