Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Il Regno di Rame by S.A. Chakraborty

16 reviews

singalana's review against another edition

adventurous reflective tense slow-paced

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

2.0

Even though I listened to it as an audio, I had to SLOG through this book!

It has been about a year since I listened to the first part of the trilogy. It was a huge mistake to wait that long because I spent about the first 20 % of the book wondering who that character was, what that word meant and what happened in the last book.

After I got over that, the book started dragging for a different reason: NOTHING MEANINGFUL HAPPENS! It feels like there are no stakes, and so much time is spent on describing the most meaningless things. As one reviewer pointed out, everything that the characters try to do is thwarted by someone more powerful. 

About 60 % in, I realized that I do not care about any of these characters. Except maybe for Dara, because he is at least a little bit interesting. There’s no real feeling of danger, and I knew nothing bad would happen to the characters. The main character, Nahri, is insufferably righteous, the same as Ali. As one reviewer put it: 99 % of the characters are magical racists, religious fanatics or war criminals. Not exactly a likeable bunch.

Spoilers!

If I remember correctly, there’s a little bit of romance between Nahri and Dara in the first book, and I started rooting for Dara. In this book, Nahri is forced to marry King Ghassan’s son, and we get to see how evil and manipulative Ghassan is. Dara is brought back to life to serve Manizheh, who plans to oust the Qahtanis and restore Nahid rule to Daevabad. HOWEVER, it turns out that Manizheh is the evil one, and when she and her forces attack Daevabad, ALL of the characters forget what kind of  a**hole Ghassan was, and everyone is very sad that he’s dead. RIP. Nahri is, of course, a smart and spunky heroine and saves the day, yay!

 

But in all seriousness, I could not give a damn about any of these characters, especially since they are all so infuriatingly dramatic all the time. It sucks out any real impact a really dramatic scene should have when the characters are gasping and staring in shock about half of the book. If the author succeeded in something, it was when in the first book, I started to like Dara, even though he is practically a war criminal. Then, in the second book, I’m supposed to root for the Qahtanis, I guess? 

In addition to that, this book is all over the place about the shafit, the “mixed-bloods”, who are part human. The shafit are treated as something to be saved, and when they lash out for being treated like cattle, they are suddenly wild animals.

This book has way too many elements, it’s way too slow, and everything is so damn dramatic all the time. I’m so glad this is over. Let’s see if I pick up the last part of this series in a year or so after I have forgotten how messy and frustrating this was. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

brynalexa's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I was consistently shocked through the  entire book. The story never goes where you’re expecting it to. Somehow a cast of treacherous characters making terrible decisions works. Brilliant. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, and Classism

dazzle_spider_reader_1212's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

madamenovelist's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

imds's review against another edition

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and War

Minor: Self harm

laurareads87's review against another edition

adventurous 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

5.0

Well, I didn't expect this, but I liked The Kingdom of Copper even more than I liked The City of Brass.  I feel like while the earlier book establishes the world, the second takes both character development and politics to a new level: more excitement, more tension, more complexity.  I'm so glad I'm reading this series now, when all three books have been released, so that I don't have to wait for Book 3.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Religious bigotry, War, and Injury/Injury detail

laurenkimoto'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? Yes

4.0

wow I’ve been reading too much contemporary romance that I forgot that high fantasy has themes and/or acts of genocide</>spoiler 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol

dealingwithdragons's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death of parent, and Alcohol

While Chakraborty's characters are djinn from fantasy tribes, the tribes they are from correspond to real world ethnic groups. The narrative is clearly against racism and xenophobia, but the depictions could potentially be triggering.

claudiamacpherson's review against another edition

adventurous 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Gun violence, Self harm, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Police brutality

readwithria's review against another edition

adventurous 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? Yes

3.5

Kingdom of Copper improved upon an already interesting world.

I’m not usually a big fan of long time skips, I think they’re often used to forcibly create unknown information, BUT this book did an incredible job of acknowledging that time had passed without the time passage being the conflict. The characters were able to grow off page and return to the story more sure of themselves and their places in the world. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and think that it was a great choice!

This book brings in Dara as a POV character and for me, that was the hardest part of reading the book. I did not enjoy reading his chapters, and I usually would stop reading for the day once I got to a Dara chapter.

the chapters once he has realized how ruthless Manizheh is were even harder to read because he knows that she’s willing to hurt innocent people, he doesn’t like it, but he goes along with it anyway

I think that the pacing of this book worked much better than City of Brass. I also liked the fact that Nahri had grown into herself and had a lot more agency in this book. Her comfort with being the Banu Nahida was apparent, and her relationships with the other members of the palace felt believable given the years she had spent there as the wife to the Emir.

Ali had definitely grown a lot between books one and two, but his motivation felt a little weak to me.

I don’t fully understand where his shift in beliefs about the Daeva tribe came from. He went from hating their religion and their beliefs about the shafit to not seeming to care, and that shift felt like it came out of nowhere

My favorite non-POV characters have to be Jamshid and Zaynab. They both have so much gumption and a strong sense of who they are and where they fit in the world. It’s refreshing to see, especially given how much Nahri and Ali are changing their place in the world. I could talk about them forever, but this review is already getting long so I’m going to wrap it up here. I look forward to seeing how the trilogy concludes in Empire of Gold.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury