Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

3 reviews

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

josiee's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny tense fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

luluslittlelibrary's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Cultural appropriation, and Sexual harassment