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isabelleroyall's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Gore, Self harm, Sexism, Torture, and Vomit
Minor: Cursing, Infidelity, Grief, and Death of parent
scarlett_f's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing
mzquirk's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Bullying, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, and Abandonment
skillyillian's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
mild spoilers ahead, big spoilers will be tagged
elspeth and ravyn continue to be excellent together, even when they're apart and don't have a good way to communicate, you can still see how much they love each other. i do still think they were kinda insta-lovey, but honestly with them i don't even mind. i feel like they didn't develop as characters quite as much as the first book. not to say they didn't have character development, just that it wasn't as prevalent. they actually spent the entire book apart save for a handful of times they got to talk to each other, so i feel like it kinda makes sense their relationship didn't really deepen that much.
that being said, the person that got the most, the very best, the most incredible character development, was Elm. my brave, wise, wonderful elm. i'd die for him tbh, i loved him SO MUCH. he fucking carried this book (along with the shepherd king), i'm not even exaggerating. seeing him grow as a person, watching his romance with ione bloom, was so good. every elm chapter held me captive, edge of my seat, biting my nails. the torture he went through, the pain and trauma, just to come out on the other side stronger and even more determined to never hurt anyone like that again?? i wept. i cried. i want to hug him!!!!! and ione!!!! oh my god every line she had was important, every action she took mattered, i absolutely adore her so much. those two getting their justice together was phenomenal, i couldn't look away. i loved seeing ione develop as a character despite
i have lovingly nicknamed the shepherd king as "shep", mostly because it fit in the margins the best lmfao but also i just think he would say he disliked it very much but secretly think it was amusing. his sass, the banter and bickering with the yews and his smartass remarks to elspeth, were so fucking funny. i highlighted literally all of them. his personality really, really shines in this book. telling ravyn "elspeth says she's sick of you" and ravyn replying "she didn't say that" made me laugh every time. the bickering back and forth between shep and ravyn was so good. i loved the little moments of levity it created. shep and elm took turns carrying this book and it was so fun and kept things interesting, even when switching POVs. there wasn't a single POV where i went "ugh oh my god not this again, i'm probably just going to skim this pointless shit." (looking at you, tharion and ithan. smfh)
i loved, loved, loved shep's backstory. learning about how he came to be who he was before and after he met elspeth, and the affects that the events of both books had on him, was just wonderful. he had the best character development but i love that we saw it from the past and the present. i absolutely adored the way gillig gave her lore, especially with him.
my biggest grievance with this one was the same as the first: elspeth and ravyn are borderline clueless throughout the entire book. shep, and sometimes others, have to spell everything out for them. shep's sarcasm about the yews being idiots is 10/10 but i also kinda don't really think he was wrong lmfao. he had to explain literally everything they were doing.
i will say,
overall, this book is as excellent as everyone says it is. the worldbuilding is awesome. the author stuck to the rules she created for her incredibly unique magic system. the characters, for the most part, grow and develop really well so they feel like they've finished their arcs by the end of the book. i loved the lore and the way it was delivered. backstories galore, in the best way. justice was served to those who deserved it, and in the most satisfying way possible. as shep said, "poetry is as judicious as violence." the book itself is wonderful. one weird thing i did notice is that, at least in my copy? there's a bunch of typos. like i think i must've found at least a dozen, if not more. it was weird, bc like. how many people read this book before it went to print, y'know? didn't ruin the story or anything but i would see them and just be like "huh. weird that got missed, but whatever i guess?" ykwim? oh well.
side note, but the print quality of my paperback copy (which i'm not blaming the author for by ANY means, don't get me wrong. this is not included in my score of the book, just a complaint i have bc i'm just Like This) was wildly disappointing. i had pages that were a deep black, like they should be, but most pages were much, much lighter than that. i even had pages where the ink was so faint it was like a steel grey, nowhere near black. if my highlighter had been a darker shade it would've just covered the words as if i were redacting them. it was really irritating to have some pages (very few) be as dark as they should've been, while most of the ink in my copy was half as dark as the standard black. it was a bummer bc it didn't stick out nearly as well as it should have against my highlighter. like their printers were running out of ink and they just went "eh, you can still see it more or less. close enough." and it was a bummer for sure. but anyway, like i said, that's not included in my score here. i'm just bitching. the book is very very good, i loved almost all of it, i'd just recommend checking the inside of your physical copy before you buy it lmao.
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
edilyaaang's review against another edition
- 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 will be thinking about this book for weeks to come. I just know it. This was the best book to open 2024
Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Self harm, Sexual content, Torture, Police brutality, and Grief
tired_cicada's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
No going forward there are going to be several spoilers throughout this review! The bigger ones all kind of separate off, but I am going to be discussing plot points, and character decisions. So be aware!
New povs
One thing that I was obsessed with in one dark window was the incredibly brave thing that Gillig does and essentially destroying her main character. At the end of book one the POV character essentially does not exist anymore. That is an incredibly brave thing to do, both narratively and as a debut author. So often it's characters that we connect with so to have the character who's story we've been following the entire time be gone is a risky business. That said it's handled so well. The one thing I can see some people having issue with is that we are going from a first person point of view with a singular narrator, into a book that has third person multiple povs. It didn't bother me but I know that can be something that other people find issue with.
That said I was obsessed with each of the new povs we got. Each character feels distinct from the others. There isn't a flat narrator voice simply telling you what different characters are doing it actually felt like each character had their own voice to tell their own story. Now let's get into it... We get three povs in this novel Rayen who is struggling with the fact that he is stuck traveling with the monster that is taken over the body of the woman he's fallen in love with, then we have Elm who is dealing with the ramifications of his father's brutal court, and his brother's blatant abuse without the protection of his cousin that he's come to rely on. Finally we have
One thing that you should know about me is that my favorite character in any piece of media is always going to be the saddest boy available. There is something about a fictional man who is sad and expressing emotions that hit just right. So Elm was next level. We have childhood trauma, we have feelings of inadequacy, we have mutual pining, we have abandonment issues! I was being fed here!
With elms story we are largely watching a cinderella-like story play out juxtaposed against Ravyn's race against Time to save the lives of those he loves... And lo -key I was more stressed out about the Cinderella story. The way Elm and Ione interact was so entertaining. The way they clash heads, and the way they work together toward a common goal was rippled with tension. Now I had the vaugest inklings in book one, and I was fully prepared for this to be a crack ship I was RIGHT! Don't you ever doubt my ability to sniff out a romance! Where as last time we got the delightful fake dating trope this time we are having a delightful time with this forbidden Love. I was having a stellar time thank you very much!
Then of course we have, as mentioned before, Ravyn embarking on a race against Time to find the twin alder card! He is balancing the line between staying just well enough inside of the king's good graces, well also committing blatant treason. All the while having to look into the eyes that no longer belong to the woman he loves knowing that anything goes wrong he will never get her back. The banter between all of the characters in this POV is delightful. We have the ivy twins back and I love them in the first book. They were so light-hearted and they gave an air of humor to everything. So I was delighted to have them back. And then I love how Gillig writes siblings. The interactions between Ravyn and his sister feel like interactions that actual siblings would have. It is so hard to write sibling Dynamics in a way that don't come off entirely cringy, so I enjoyed feeling like this was real. Like they actually had a relationship. And to watch the give and the take, to see the way that their sibling dynamic plays out to both their strengths and their detriments was done incredibly well. And blends so well against the backdrop of the historical information that is being sprinkled throughout. Showing that if history doesn't repeat it sure does rhyme.
Magic system
Now you cannot talk about this series without talking about the magic system. It is a stunningly done incredibly unique system, where we're dealing with two types of hard magics. We have the fever, which grants individual powers to different people seemingly involuntarily. And the more we learn about the fevers brought on by the mist, and how the spirit of the wood fit into the larger society the more we're starting to understand how the Rowans came to power and why.
Then of course there are the cards themselves. The whole point of the story is to get the final card out of the deck so that people can be cured of the sickness that comes from the mist. So that their magic will no longer be killing them. The way the different cards are handled is so beautiful. Taking simple cards that can largely be overlooked and showing that in the right circumstances they are phenomenally powerful was such a fun ride.
Also seeing the way that other users of the cards are affected by them, and showing the character's strengths by being able to push through the negative aspects of the cards when pushed to their limits. It showed off an inner strength to these characters that really sink in how much they've grown throughout the course of the story.
What we could have done without
Now just like any other story it wasn't perfect. There are a few things that I thought were just thrown in there to add extra pages. Like we meet a society of individuals who are living outside of the reaching hand of the Rowan Kings, who are surviving within the forest shrouded in mists... And we spend a whopping 10 minutes there. Like it had so much potential to be so interesting. It starts so many cool conversations to have, and then it's just brushed over and forgotten. It really could have been taken out of the book and not affected the plot in any substantial way. That might just be a me thing though, cuz I'm not a huge fan of travel books. Where the entire plot is just getting from point A to point b and, oh no unforeseen circumstance that slowed us down? However are we going to get there on time?
If I'm going to have to read about travel I want each moment to feel like it meant something, so unnecessary detours like that really take me out of the story.
In a similar vein to that I feel like Emery (I literally had to look up his name cuz I forgot what it was) was such a non-character given that the entire reason anyone is doing anything is to save him. Really all we know about Emery is that if he touches you he can see the future (kind of sort of) and that he's frail. But there's nothing in the story that really shows us the connection that they have to him, other than the text simply telling us that they do. I would have liked to see more interactions with his family, with Ravyn, really just something that made him feel like a character and less like a prop.
Those are really my only hang ups, otherwise I absolutely adored the story. I thought it wrapped everything up nicely. It lived up to my expectations, and it is something that I will definitely recommend to others. My one regret is that I didn't get to Buddy read it with my friend who I read one dark window with. But because of that I do have a list of spoilers without context for any of you who would like to enjoy those!
SPOILERS WITHOUT CONTEXT
So you know that one scene from bridgerton season 2 where Anthony falls in the lake? If you know you know....... Yeah that or something similar happens like four times. These men are getting dropped in lakes left and right, and I for one was here for it!
You know how in the first book (and this one too) people were constantly making comments about how distinctive Ravyn's nose is? Yeah that's plot relevant.
There are significantly less mentions of how warm Ravyn's hands are. (If you're looking for a drinking game then read one dark window and take a shot every time Elseph mentions how warm Ravyn's hands are, or someone mentions his nose)
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Self harm, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Classism