Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian

24 reviews

sweetchocolatez's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• 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: Sexual harassment, Genocide, Child death, Murder, Sexual assault, Bullying, Sexism, Physical abuse, Death, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Torture, Death of parent, Blood, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Misogyny, Animal death, Mental illness, and War

Minor: Violence, Alcohol, and Toxic friendship

esterslibrary's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Toxic friendship, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Torture, and Vomit

prunechips's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Torture, Violence, Child abuse, Colonisation, Toxic friendship, Racism, Death of parent, and Slavery

Moderate: Sexual harassment

cosmicbanana's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Murder, Racism, and Slavery

laurajeangrace's review against another edition

I just didn’t care enough to keep going. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and War

Moderate: Violence and Death

Minor: Domestic abuse and Slavery

sweetordinary's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

At the beginning, I was wholeheartedly intrigued and invested in the characters and plot. However, I found myself utterly dismayed and highly disappointed with the development of the main character. Her mentality has glimmers of shifting towards this powerful force; yet, moments later its dashed into a frustrating blend of selfish nativity for who she is as a character and what she's supposed to become in the future.

The political courtship navigation is a huge reason why I was intrigued to read this story. How Theodosia navigates it is quite painful to read let alone to follow along. I understand that I'm supposed to feel sympathy for her and rally behind her. However, there are events that occur which completely go off the rails because of her. Thus, my interests shift towards Blaise, Cress, Art, Heron, and Soren as more interesting lines of inquiry. I want to know more about their story, interests, personality, etc.

If I decide to read the sequel, it will be because of those characters not because of Theodosia.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Classism, Violence, Body horror, Blood, Grief, Death, Slavery, Death of parent, Torture, and Murder

Moderate: Slavery, Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Child abuse, Child death, Toxic friendship, Torture, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Domestic abuse, War, Slavery, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Violence, Torture, Rape, Physical abuse, Cultural appropriation, and Murder

words_and_dreams's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

YA Fantasy

This follows the story of Theo, a Princess whose kingdom was taken from an invading force and her mother killled in front of her as a child. She has grown up under the rule of the Kaiser who keeps her as a trophy, abusing and torturing her. She keeps her head down to avoid punishment. 

Events transpire that awaken her from her almost complacency and make her want to fight back and retake the kingdom. 

There is alot of elements that crop up in YA including a love triangle but I felt it did work in the context of the story. The stakes always felt high and with the torture etc it definitely had a darker vibe to it. It wasn't perfect but it got me out of a reading slump and was a great page turner.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Torture, Death of parent, Death, and Murder

Minor: Grief

rinku's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.5

Ash Princess is your typical YA fantasy centred around a chosen one that has to earn her right place back by killing the hot prince™. The story is as cliché as it sounds, but still enjoyable because of the characters and the interesting and dark world which is why I gave it 3.5 stars. 

Like I’ve said, this general plot is not the most innovative, but I still liked the way that it was told. The main character Theo came into this situation because the Kaiser and his people conquered her country, killing the queen, her mother, in the course of it. Theo is now stuck at the Kaiser’s court as a kind of trophy while realizing that she finally has to do something against it. The story is quite dark already at the beginning where she’s forced to

Spoiler

kill her dad

which intrigued me immediately. There are many other dramatic moments in the story which were written so well, like

Spoiler

Elpis sacrificing herself

. Sadly, some plot lines were quite cliché and predictable, like

Spoiler

the main character almost having to marry an older man, or the masquerade ball. It was furthermore so predictable that Theo wouldn’t kill Søren and that her plan with the poison would fail as well

. 

The atmosphere of the story is just so dark and angsty which I absolutely love. The stakes are so high and there were some situations where I didn’t know how Theo would get out of them. Additionally, the lore around the magic and the stones is so interesting but was sadly info dumped at the beginning. It’s especially dark how Theo’s people are treated and how the stones are used by the Kaiser and his people as jewels while they are something holy for Theo’s people. It was also interesting how Theo didn’t use her magic because she didn’t want to risk not going to the afterlife, showing how strong her belief is. 

Looking at the characters, I quite liked Theo as the main character. She has a great character development and change of mind in the course of the story. It’s obvious that she struggles with her loyalties and needs time to figure out what the right thing to do is. Her hatred and anger are so powerful as well, I love it. What I didn’t love though was the romance. Theo of course has to fall for the first guy she meets aka prince Søren. It was interesting to see how she was getting closer to him, but their friendship developed a bit fast for my taste. Their relationship didn’t develop fully as I would’ve expected, so that was a little surprise. Sadly though, we also get a love triangle where the other part doesn’t interest me. 

Furthermore, what annoyed me was the lack of important female characters besides Theo and Cress and the villain being constantly described as fat. Talking about Cress, her over-the-top jealously annoyed me and

Spoiler

it was obvious from the beginning that she couldn’t be trusted but my heart still dropped when she revealed Theo that she knew everything about her. She could be an interesting villain in the following books

. 

After the dramatic ending, I’ll definitely continue the Ash Princess series. The world and the characters have so much potential, and I hope that this potential will be utilized.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Classism, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Cultural appropriation, Death, Murder, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Kidnapping, Sexual harassment, War, Fatphobia, and Vomit

Minor: Rape and Abandonment

saara_ilona_muu's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Confinement, Colonisation, Murder, Genocide, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Slavery, Infidelity, Blood, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Classism, Violence, Torture, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Mental illness, and Kidnapping

majumita's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Torture, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Murder, Death of parent, and Slavery

Moderate: Kidnapping