Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

18 reviews

bookishgoob's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

this book was a beautiful fantasy that wasn’t incredibly confusing in the world building. the perspectives of each place and how they train up their queens was so interesting to see. i’m so glad i started this series

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail

martereadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

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

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

barry_benson's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Torture, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Vomit

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

claragweny's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

3.0

An interesting, though poorly described, world and a very compelling ending. I'll probably continue reading the series but I hope that Blake builds the world around them some more in the other books. 

I can't really recommend reading this without going through all the content warnings. It is very triggering in many, many ways.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Infidelity, Sexual content, Abandonment, and War

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I'll admit, the first half of this is pretty slow paced and doesn't really pick up until the last third or so. There's a lot of setting the tone, which makes sense, since this is the first book in a series. But that ending! Blake definitely knows how to grab her readers to be sure they'll continue to the next book. What a cliffhanger ending!

On a side note, I listened to the audiobook of this and got confused when it randomly rewound and I realized I was listening to the same chapters over again. At first, I thought maybe it was a weird formatting thing, but Hoopla was just being weird. The narrator for the audiobook was fantastic, though! And useful because I'm sure there were a bunch of things I wouldn't have been able to pronounce, otherwise. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death and Blood

Minor: Animal cruelty and Sexual content

emmyrandomreport's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I enjoyed this book. I am trying to get into fantasy and jumped at the chance to read this for a read-along. I thought as many people I have heard echo, that there would be more action. In the beginning, it was hard to keep track of the many characters but it got better. This got four stars from me because of the ending. I have never had a sentence change the whole book before. I will be picking up the next one after that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Violence

Minor: Infidelity