Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Kings Rising

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Kings Rising by C.S. Pacat

79 reviews

beraspa's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

It is the shortest book in the trilogy, but reading this last book felt a little denser than the previous ones. Expected ending and happy to finish it!

Content Warnings

littlewishling's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was on the edge of my seat for most of this book. I was so stressed and I loved every second of it. I’m sad that this is the end of the series cause I just want more!

Content Warnings

divine529's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

This is the third and final book in the Captive Prince trilogy and once again it picked up right where the previous one left off with Damen's reveal to the people around him and war brewing.

This was the best of the three by a lot. I still consider it all to be "book candy" and like with the previous books, so much telling, not a ton of showing, but it was a stronger book than the previous two by a lot. The reveal of Damen to everyone really helped a lot of things, and getting to unpack all the trauma both he and Laurent went through was good. It definitely needed to be unpacked further, but I'm glad we got what we did. Some of the side characters ended up being a good voice of reason and conscience for all of that (Nikandros is the best). There were some absolutely fantastic scenes - sparring scene and whatever they hell they were doing with the disguises was hysterical to read. It was great getting to see everything come together and wind up, but I didn't love how rushed and abrupt the ending was.

All in all, this was my favorite of the three. I still had problems with the book and series as a whole, but it was entertaining overall.

Content Warnings

cielosiluminado's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

5.0

i need to lay down and cry... LONG LIVE LAMEN FOREVER!!!

Content Warnings

nikki_saulnier's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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

5.0

Content Warnings

nitzanschwarz's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

81 | B- | 3.8 ★ | Good

Not gonna lie, I'm sad it's over! Partly because this book doesn't feel complete. More on that in a second. I will warn you - I will focus on some things that frustrated and annoyed me. I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed seeing Laurent and Damen's story conclude. I have enjoyed them as a couple and would like to read more about them. But I also had a lot of things that I was not particularly happy about, and I needed to let them out, simple as that.

This book picks up right where the last one ended when Damen regains his name. And I suppose it goes the best it could.

When we learned that the Regent had known of Damen's true identity all along, I had suspected that Laurent did, too. It wouldn't make sense that he wouldn't, and it would explain so much. And I was glad to be right because it meant he consciously made all his choices.

Although he does not react well to having to admit to that.

I loved Laurent in this, even when he was frustrating. This man is capable beyond his years. I love that his last play hinges on

trusting Damen to come, even when he told him not to

. I'm not sure he believed it would work out, but perhaps that's exactly what I find so compelling about it. I think Laurent would be a good king.

Damen, however? I am not so sure about it. I don't think he actually has what it takes—oh, sure, he'll be a great military general. But a king? I have my doubts. Being kind and righteous does not a king make, and this man is kind of DUMB. Like, he lets himself be provoked into stupid actions. A King should not be this easy to get a rise out of. He fails to see subterfuge when it's right in his face, and had Laurent not counted on that--counted on his stupid straightforwardness--they'd both be dead.

It's lucky that

, apparently, he won't be ruling alone

. Not that I can tell you exactly what the political arrangement is going to be, because the book ends right after the climax, and I guess I'm too dumb to figure out how his political (and romantic) arrangement with Laurent is going to work in practice.

I still love Laurent and Damen, and I wish we got to see them happy at any point in this series. We don't. All we get to see is them struggling against, quite frankly, horrible people. Part of my issue with this novel is that I wanted more from how we dispatched these people.

Damen

fucking trusted Kastor again. For all that is holy and good. Why, oh why, would you leave someone willing to murder, lie, and destroy you for the throne alive? This is the same man who waxed in his head about what a mistake leaving Govart or whatever his name was alive would be. And here he is, refusing to do what he should because it's "his brother." Give me a break. And you give him honor after his death! The man who murdered the previous king, the man who sent you to be a sex slave, the man who left your country open for a tyrannical megalomaniac because he was so hungry for the throne it didn't matter if he had to bow to someone else's authority to have it, gets an honorable burial as a member of the royal family.

Are you fucking kidding me??

Not only was I not happy about the showdown with Kastor, I wasn't thrilled about the showdown with the Regent, either! It all felt so hollow. All it took was...

two witnesses? That's it? We took down this larger-than-life predator with a single letter from someone who claimed to have killed the previous king under the Regent's orders. Are we being for real right now? Was he simply a fly the whole time, easily slapped away? There should have been more. More witnesses to make it believable that he would be put down this easily. More resistance. More something. I get that it might have seemed appropriate - that for all his bluster and confidence, he was not, in fact, the big deal he thought he was. But it took a parade of witnesses and hours of interrogation to reach Laurent's verdict... and 15 minutes to kill the acting King

.

We also never really talked about Laurent's past. We have a discovery and an outburst, and then... nothing. It deserved more than that. For a series that spent so much time in the first book dishing out sexual abuse, it has a remarkable lack of content dealing with or acknowledging the consequences of such abuse...

Overall, I thought the climax was a disappointing end to the series (and it is quite literally the end; the book closes seconds after the climax), that it didn't deliver on some of the things that it set out, and it didn't even have the decency to cushion some of the hurt with fluff at the end LOL. I am very curious to read Pacat's newest series and see how and where she has developed as a writer and a series planner since this one!

Plot - 17/20
Characters - 18/20
Relationships - 18/20
Writing - 14/20
Reading Experience - 14/20
Final score: 81

Content Warnings

madelinedamon's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark slow-paced

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

2.0

Content Warnings

chaptermaggot's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Content Warnings

mallorypen's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad 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

5.0

I really, really enjoyed the hell out of this book, and the incredibly satisfying conclusion to a series that I did not particularly enjoy as it began.

When I say "incredibly satisfying," I don't just mean the happy ending where the battered and bruised kings of their respective countries find a way to love one another on their own terms and reunite an ancient and divided kingdom as a result; I mean that the plot answered all the outstanding questions, and that the narrative delivered parallel arcs that made the story feel complete. Here are a couple of things that I really fucking enjoyed:

The story began with the knowledge that Damien killed Auguste in a conflict that was understood (at the time) to be orchestrated by Damien and Laurent's fathers as part of an act of war. The story ends with Laurent killing Kastor in a conflict that was revealed to have been orchestrated entirely by the Regent ... just as the initial conflict had been.
The fact that Laurent knew who Damien was from the first moment he saw him?!? Because of course he did - this guy killed his brother. Laurent studied and fought his entire life to be able to kill just this one man. He obsessed over how to end his life. The fact that he didn't immediately kill Damien when he had him under his power was a little strange to me, but I did appreciate how it played Laurent's desire for retribution against his survival instinct. This reveal also lent a new light to all their previous interactions, and proved that Laurent was smart enough to be able to compartmentalize the horrors of war/the actions of a young prince doing what he thought was right for his country. It also showed just how reluctantly Laurent was dragged into first acknowledging Damien as someone who saved his life; then grudgingly respecting him as a smart battle tactician and strategic asset; and finally seeing Damien as someone he could love in spite of it all.
Damien and Laurent's characters were so clearly defined, and the way they approached conflict stayed perfectly in those defined characteristics.
- Laurent was calculated until he got vicious, at which point he made mistakes, and he only got vicious when his highly-personal tender spots were attacked - anything to do with his uncle's abuse/approval, and anything to do with Damien. Firstly, because he knew who Damien was and was suffused with rage, and then because he learned the truth of Damien's character and then decided loving and protecting Damien was more important than his own political machinations. UGH, my heart.
- Damien's driving motivations stayed consistent: to do what's right for his kingdom & to adhere to his own moral code. He was smart, but not devious; he was controlled, but not impenetrable. His growing affection for Laurent made him even sloppier, which was shown with devastating effect when he tried to get to the Regent at the kingsmeet. MY. HEART. (Speaking of that moment, it was also a great illustration of how alike Laurent and the Regent were in how they used the emotion and motivation of the people around them to get what they wanted - the Regent revealed his abuse of his nephew in just the right moment to get Damien to lose control in just the right place to gain leverage over Laurent.) I also appreciated that Damien's moral compass made him blind to the motivations of less honorable men - he fully believed that Gion would make good on his promise to give evidence against the Regent, even when he and Laurent were in chains and about to lose everything.
Though it was horrific, the throughline of the young men who were abused by the Regent ultimately being his downfall was symbolically fitting. From Laurent, who dedicated his life to beating his uncle at his own game (though his motivations were clouded between actually beating him to impressing him/proving his value independent of his uncle's perverse desires), to Nicase, who saw the writing on the wall and delivered the damning evidence to the physician, to Emeric - the death of whom became the impetus for Gion's wife Loche to break from her husband's schemes and tell the truth. It drove the narrative that, no matter how wiley and intelligent you are, if you are a bad person who does bad things, the truth and karma will out.

~~So why didn't I give this book a five star rating?~~ Actually, that's a good question, and it may be a reflection of a few things from the series versus things from the individual book - the main thing that comes to mind is how Damien didn't figure out that the Regent had abused Laurent. There's a line in the first book that all but shouted it out plainly, and plenty of evidence thereafter that was glaringly obvious. I also really wanted an out-loud love confession, because I'm a HEA bitch through and through ... even though it was obvious in how Laurent asked Damien about combining their countries and his joy when Damien agreed. And guess what? I adjusted my rating because I simply cannot stop thinking about this book/this series.

Anyways. This fucking slapped!

Content Warnings

lauwbinx's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad 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

Content Warnings

More...