Reviews tagging 'War'

Arrow's Fall by Mercedes Lackey

7 reviews

ourladyofsocks's review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual violence, Torture, and War

rainbowdragonz's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 I cried so much throughout this book. There's not much I can say without spoilers except its a beautiful and tragic ending to a brilliant series. This book really touches my heart. I also love how it echo's the prophecy given in Arrows Flight. You need to read the this series it's soo good! And once you've read this, if you want to cry all over again listen to the songs Trio and Battle Dawn by Mercedes Lackey.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Torture, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, and War

Moderate: Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Slavery

grace_b_3's review

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Torture, Violence, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide attempt

Minor: Pedophilia

ebbiebooks's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Torture and War

Minor: Rape

seanml's review

adventurous dark sad medium-paced

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

3.25

Well, I don't know. It's been a strange series. Mercedes really was just doing her thing. She wanted her magical kingdoms, her magic horses that you can talk to, a bizarre love triangle, and a sudden dive into some very dark places with no euphemisms. She presents the events of the book to you in complete earnest - yet the series is still written like a YA series for 12 year olds! Also I'm glad I didn't read the blurb on the back because the stuff that it talks about happens over halfway through the book. It's like if the New Testament had a blurb on the back starting with "The prophet is put to death!" All I can say is that 1980s fantasy - before the appearance of the big series that would become beloved new classics, but after the standard set 50 years earlier by Tolkien - is a wild place to be. 6.5/10.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Gore and Vomit

bibliophile1's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail

I listed a lot of trigger warnings because these themes/scenes do exist in this book. However, the focus is always on how the main character feels emotionally about what’s going on, so the physical descriptions of these events are mentioned but are glossed over; no really in-depth details. The author wants you to know the heroine is suffering, but the overall theme is about overcoming adversity and belief in something greater than oneself.

accidentalspaceexplorer's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.0

I really expected to like this book more, but I should have heeded the warning one of my friends gave me long ago about Lackey's books: 85% of the book/series will be great, and then the last 15% will come in out of nowhere and be extremely dark. And look at that! This book took a super dark turn about halfway through, just about 5/6 aka 83% of the way through the series. I'll be adding content warnings to this review, but here I will simply say that it is dark, and I would really advise caution if you're expecting more horse girl content here.

Additionally, I found the romance to be really frustrating here. Dirk spends his entire time being SO DUMB and then comes in as a deus ex machina in the end.

Finally, this book is pretty clearly not the end of the story, although it's the end of Talia's story, so many of the serious problems for this country that come up are not solved at the end of the book. Will it compel me to read the next one in the series though? Based on this experience, I doubt it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Torture, and War

Minor: Child abuse and Incest