Reviews tagging Confinement

Three Dark Crowns, by Kendare Blake

7 reviews

catherinedsharp's review against another edition

This just wasn’t the book for me. I bought it years ago as a teenager and haven’t read it. The blurb is misleading in my opinion of what the text is, and there is very brutal treatment of characters done ‘out of love’ which just does not agree with me. 

This fantasy is an interesting premise but the cruelty it shows in comparison to the YA style of writing, just didn’t agree with me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Confinement, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Injury/injury detail, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Emotional abuse

em_davies7019's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Blood, Infidelity, Animal death, Murder, and Injury/injury detail

Moderate: Vomit, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, and Gore

Minor: Sexual content and Confinement

anastasiamakes's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

I was expecting this book to be very Hunger Games / Battle Royale-y but it actually focused a lot more on the characters, their relationships, and the politics of their world. A dark romp with strong female characters throughout and some good twists. Enjoyed it more than I expected! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/injury detail, Physical abuse, Vomit, and Blood

Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Torture, and Violence

emily_mh's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

3.0

A sentence that sums up how I feel about this book is: I'm glad I didn't buy it, but I am interested in what happens next. The best part about the book was its premise of three queens vying for the throne, and there was some good world-building surrounding this. Everything else was a bit meh. I didn't like the omniscient narration style, or that it was done in present tense. I think it was the reason behind the poor characterisation of literally every character (but ESPECIALLY Katharine's. Her POVs were... so bland). There was just no internal world for any of them. I was expecting big reactions from the sisters meeting for the first time in ten years, but it was literally "oh there's my sister on her platform" or "oh my sister's talking to me in this forest" which was incredibly disappointing. Flat characters also meant that all the romances fell flat. It was very insta-love. And on top of the characters being meh, the plot had no direction beyond the fact that Beltane was gonna happen in a couple of months. Literally nothing of consequence happened between the beginning and that point. And you'd expect with the whole book leading up to the Quickening, that event would have some impact. But it was over in 10 pages tops. On the whole I was just expecting a lot more from this book. What partially saved it was the unique world-building and the fact that I wasn't dreading picking it back up when I put it down - it was actually somewhat enjoyable and definitely easy to read. That's enough to make me pick up the sequel!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Violence, Death, Child death, Gore, Body horror, Murder, Injury/injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Animal death, and Vomit

Minor: Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Ableism, Excrement, Confinement, Sexual content, and Eating disorder

bubothereader's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I read this during most of my honeymoon—admittedly, a weird choice. 

I really liked this first book—it’s atmospheric, has interesting characters, and a magical system that I’d love to see on film. I did find it a tad predictable; however, I still enjoyed it immensely. Definitely one of my best 2021 reads. I plan on picking up the rest of the series at some point, As I’m very interested in how everything will go.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/injury detail, Murder, Self harm, and Violence

teddieplaysbass's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Violence

victorianrogue's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, and Infidelity

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Death, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Confinement, and Sexual content