Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence

10 reviews

clovetra's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

this book was a TRIP. at some points it was enjoyable, but a lot more often than not with this book it made almost zero sense. 

this book’s worldbuilding and characters really sucked me in to begin with. the world of crath, alongside livira as an incredibly likeable protagonist really worked. evar’s world also sucked me in, but i will say compared to livira, he was quite boring as a character. he lacked deep characterisation, and alongside someone as spunky as livira his chapters fell flat.

i think this book’s biggest downfall is although its almost 600 pages, it feels like it barely touches on the world of the story, and instead focuses on characters, which is all find and dandy if your worldbuilding is up to par. this book jumped steps 1, 2 &3 and immediately ran to step 4 regarding its world. like even in the first chapter the dust isn’t properly explained, and you kind of just have to piece together what’s going on. like sabbers - are they human? we’re told at some points, yes…. then no…. then like 70% into the book a nonhuman description is given…. but then yes they’re human. it felt like a battle between each concept as it would be explained one way, and then expanded on when the foundation wasn’t properly explored. 

also the amount of plot twists…. im a girl who loves plot twists, even if i predict them. what i don’t love is that this book is so complex and fails to fully explain the rules of its world that the plot twists literally don’t make sense, or feel like they’ve just been added for shock value. like once we got to jumping portals within portals and assistants and travelling back and forth…. after a while everything was twisting in on itself too much and seemed to be breaking the laws of this world’s universe i had no idea what was happening. this was probably the most egregious in the last 20% of the book. before that, i could reasonably understand what was going on. but in the last 100 pages or so i think this book really lost the plot… literally.

and the ending too….. i don’t even know what happened. like i do…. but gun to my head i couldn’t *explain* it. 

i really had fun reading this in the first half, but after that point i think too much was happening at once, it didn’t let me sit & digest what i was reading before another plot point that wasn’t fully fleshed out was introduced.

this sounds like such a mean review but i actually did enjoy myself reading this! before the halfway mark i was sure this would be a 4-star for me. but idk the way the second half of the book was….. not a fan 🙁

at this point im not even too sure if i’d want to finish this series. in one way im so attached to my girl livira i want to know what happened to her, but honestly i cant say i want to subject myself to another 600 pages of poor worldbuilding. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, War, and Classism

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation

Minor: Child death, Genocide, and Grief

nina_rae_131's review against another edition

adventurous 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: Confinement and Genocide

Moderate: Death, Violence, Trafficking, Death of parent, and War

srm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious 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

Well written and an interesting enough set up, but I'll never completely love anything with elements of time travel. My own fault for not reading reviews, though. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Confinement, Death, Violence, Grief, and War

dkamada's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Time is trippy and so is love

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Racism, Self harm, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

yilliun's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Wholly original and unlike anything I had ever read before. Some of the early sections dragged and I struggled to get through those world building pieces. The last 200 pages flew by though, so that made up for it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and War

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Xenophobia, and Classism

aloy's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Fatphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, and War

dhh08's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Blood, and Colonisation

dani_reis's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey. 
Most definitely the best book of 2023.
I am undone knowing this is an unfinished series--and would do anything to reread this for the first time all over again.
Audio ch 41 I think restarted near the end. If you encounter that chapter: skip to about 7 min left and you'll be where you need to.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Violence, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Moderate: Child death and Death of parent

Minor: Gun violence, Slavery, and Injury/Injury detail

wrendezvoused's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Confinement, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

booksandteatime's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-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? No

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Xenophobia, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Classism