Reviews tagging 'Death'

Wings of Fire Book Four: The Dark Secret, Volume 4 by Tui T. Sutherland

8 reviews

wolfiegrrrl's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

4.0

After a lifetime of being told that fighting and killing are equivalent to bravery and strength and watching the rest of his friends naturally be brave in their own ways, it's Starflight's turn to discover that being brave doesn't mean not being afraid. It means being afraid and doing the right thing anyway! At the end of the day, he provides a valuable element of his own to their team in the form of diplomacy and thinking smarter instead of bloodier to outwit his opponents.

Learning more about the NightWings shows us that not only is desperation no excuse to toss aside your humanity by treating other living beings like objects but bigotry and self-supremacy is a learned bias, not an inherent truth.
 

While the solution was always going to be a lesson in how coexistence and working together is possible if you are willing to try, given that this is a very bold allegory for racism and colonialism, it was pretty difficult for me to digest back in 2022 when I first read it. But viewing it from a different perspective in 2024, it seems to be saying that civilians are not responsible for the actions of their government and therefore should be afforded the opportunity to learn and grow. Some digs are still thrown at RainWings, but at least now it seems like that's more an effort to show that learned biases take time to correct than an attempt to still be racist in spite of knowing better.

For a middlegrade book, The Dark Secret does a decent job of showing that war criminals should take responsibility for their actions, accept the punishment they deserve for their crimes, and then make reparations and do better. Plus, it certainly doesn't try to paint the situation as black and white. Meeting others with hatred instead of understanding breeds more war and we certainly don't need anymore of that!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Panic attacks/disorders, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Chronic illness, Infertility, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Abandonment

bean71615's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious 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

spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler
 My favorite par  was whe  oche saw clay

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death

star_charter152's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful lighthearted mysterious 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, and War

abby_can_read's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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

4.0

📖
This was a cute book. In this series, I like how the narrator changes with each book. I think this was a good continuation on the storyline, and this book had its own plot as well. There were  few twists that I saw coming and a few that I didn't.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Ableism, Genocide, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child death, Chronic illness, and Infertility

presco's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Genocide

Minor: Child death

kristyderp's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

orchidlilly's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny lighthearted 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and War

Moderate: Ableism, Bullying, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gore, Xenophobia, Grief, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Chronic illness, Infertility, Cannibalism, and Death of parent

papernihilist's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense

• 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

I’m going to be honest with y’all– I’d much rather be reading the next book already, but I have Many Thoughts about this one, so I feel kind of obligated to get this review out of the way. This book is just as good as the three before it, but it feels like the tone is shifting towards darkness a bit more quickly (although that shift was already speeding up in the last book). The new characters are skewed more to the scary side, and the setting made me especially anxious. (And that’s not a negative, for the record, I just think it needs to be said.)

The real talking point here, though, is Starflight. I’m not going to pretend he’s my favorite dragonet (although I don’t have a favorite, really, or a least favorite), and, honestly, this book made me like him a lot more, but I still find him a little overdramatic. It’s pretty likely that it’s because we’re kind of similar, honestly. His growth through the book was great, and I feel like I understand him and his place in the world a lot better, but... Alright. I just got sick of hearing about Sunny. 

I love Sunny, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I feel like Starflight needs to chill out a little bit. Like, it’s all very sweet, but I feel like I got the point. 

Anyways, with that out of the way: This was probably the hardest book in the series for me to put down, I would go to hell and back for half the characters, and I absolutely cannot wait to read the next book! So if this review seems badly written, sorry, but I’d rather not waste time proofreading when I can be reading the next book in the series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, and Murder

I’m not totally sure how to tag for it, but there’s definitely some fantasy racism in this one, for lack of a better word. The NightWings are very sure of their own superiority, and use that specific word for it constantly. There’s also very unethical science prominently featured in the book (although it’s never justified by the plot or author, which is nice).