Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

128 reviews

nineinchnails's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

this was such a strong read and a great follow up to six of crows!! i think having a

major character death

spoiled for me years ago might have slightly ruined my reading experience since it felt like i waiting most of the book for that event to come to pass, but it's equally likely experiencing that blind could have also ruined my experience. i am not really one to nitpick with YA when

everyone lives/nobody dies

because it's too unrealistic unless it gets taken too far so if it was an adult fantasy i might have appreciated it more. that being said, it was written well and didn't feel out of place or as if it was purely for shock value - i loved this book overall, so it's a very small gripe i have with CK.

i love that the romance is a subplot but for one of the relationships specifically it did end up a little vague - that doesn't bother me since i didn't read this for the romance but just a disclaimer for anyone expecting typical romance-style HEAs for everyone! the characters did start to feel a little caricatural after a while but it didn't help that i read both books one after another whilst watching the show adaptation and i found it pretty endearing if anything. it isn't often that a series offers so much representation without giving me the impression they were written to tick off a box and i am genuinely sad it's the end of these characters (outside of nina + some cameos in KoS/RoW) for now :(

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Xenophobia, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Vomit, Stalking, and Death of parent

Post traumatic stress disorder, Loss of appetite, Starvation, and Prostitution/sex work

peregrinwho's review against another edition

adventurous funny 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'm so in love with these characters, and I will be thinking about them for a long time what a wonderful ending. Very glad I took up this recommendation from my friend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Violence

Minor: Ableism, Gun violence, and Murder

em_of_swags's review against another edition

adventurous 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

[reread]not over exaggerating, this is the best book ever written

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Blood, and Kidnapping

Minor: Drug use, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, and Death of parent

david_slack110507's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective 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

4.5

I had an awful reading slump whilst reading this book and I feel like that may have affected my rating for this book (Even though I am giving it 5 stars, it is more of a just about 4.5 stars because of the reading slump and the reading slump only type of situation) but even with that I still majorly enjoyed this and my reading experience cemented the Grishaverse series and particularly the Six of Crows duology as some of my favourite series of books. If I had been more consistent with reading I would have liked Crooked Kingdom even more than I already do. 

I absolutely love the Crows and their dynamics with one another. It expanded on them even more from Six of Crows, particularly with the relationships of Kaz and Inej, Jesper and Wylan, Jesper and Kaz, Nina and Inej etc. It was so fun seeing all of the characters continue to flourish and to expand upon their already established relationships as well as build new ones and it was one of the main things that kept me coming back even with my reading slump in full force. I liked the endings we got for our Crows as they felt both satisfying and open-ended enough to allow for a sequel or for them to show up in other stories like Nina in the King of Scars duology. 

The plot, while I don't think I loved it as much as the Ice Court heist, was still very interesting and was not what I expected going off of the ending of Six of Crows and where this book started off as the plot twists felt cleverly planned out and implemented without feeling like they were done to simply progress the story lazily. The last part of the book - Part 6: Action & Echo - was extremely interesting and one of my favourite parts of the boom because the chaos flowed very nicely to make it an unpredictable, fun, and memorable reading experience. Matthias' death was unexpected and while it wasn't extremely emotional for me as Matthias is one of my lesser favourite Crows (though I do still really like him as a character), it was still effectively done and I'm interested in seeing how this will affect Nina's story going into King of Scars. 

Overall, I really liked this book and while I do feel like reading this through a reading slump affected my opinion on the book, though to no fault of the book, I think it was very successful and met my expectations on how to end this duology yet left it in an interesting place to open up into another book to make it a trilogy, which I would not be totally against. I'm most likely going to continue on with my Grishaverse binge and read Nikolai's duology with Zoya and Nina, King of Scars, next as well as hopefully soon rewatch season 1 of Shadow and Bone as well as finally watch season 2 for the first time as I've been waiting until I finished this book as I have been unsure whether or not they included elements of this and Six of Crows into season 2 or not.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Gaslighting, Abandonment, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Ableism, Bullying, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Vomit, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Classism

egwilk28's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Rape, and Slavery

Minor: Ableism and Gore

_ami_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, and War

Moderate: Death, Slavery, Torture, and Trafficking

Minor: Ableism, Child death, Domestic abuse, Vomit, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic

jackacj's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

A great continuation of Six of Crows. The characters were still amazing, I enjoyed the prose - this time, the plot also had a bigger focus. I loved the book - but I have two and a half problems with it that prevent me from 5/5. Major spoilers ahead. 

The final part of the book, "Action and Echo", felt very rushed to me. I knew Matthias was going to die and it still felt sudden, and not in a good way, but in an extremely abrupt way. We were shown the emotional consequences of this on the crows, but I still felt the book moved on too quickly, and set the death up even quicker. Ninna completely disappears a bit after Matthias's. 
The second problem is the resolution to Wylan's plotline - I actually loved how it ended up, but I hate we were only told he got back his mother and she is starting to become herself again but it's going to be a long process. Why couldn't we have had another POV chapter of Wlan's? Can you imagine how powerful that would be? Marya Henriks overall feels like a plot device, not a character, which is a pity - alas, instead of expanding on her character and writing a beautiful emotional reunion we had a chapter of Wylan taking the Van Eck mansion. The last problem is much smaller - Inej. While I love Kanej was resolved and wouldn't have it any other way, we should have seen Inej talk to her parents. The whole book builds up to I nej telling her parents what she's done - if she could justify it somehow, if what she did right. The second conflict was resolved in her fight with Dunyasha, the second? Never, apparently.

Even so, I love the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Blood

Moderate: Slavery

Minor: Ableism, Rape, Sexual assault, and War

cnannery19's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Child death, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

maya_reads_books's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

_13stars's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny sad 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? N/A

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Grief

Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Death, and Gaslighting