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ahoyitsjoy's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-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
2.5
This reminded me of reading fanfic back in the real wild west days, in both the good and the bad ways. This is a real "dead dove do not eat" so look up the cws for sure. If you didn't understand that sentence then you should not read this book probably!
Aside from the often gratuitously horrific SA happening in this book, the political intrigue is really quite well done. The reader has enough info to generally figure things out ahead of the protagonist if they're paying attention. I'm hoping the next book has the shock value dialed back several notches and more of the good stuff, because I think there's potential here.
Aside from the often gratuitously horrific SA happening in this book, the political intrigue is really quite well done. The reader has enough info to generally figure things out ahead of the protagonist if they're paying attention. I'm hoping the next book has the shock value dialed back several notches and more of the good stuff, because I think there's potential here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Trafficking, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: War
divine529's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I don't even know where to begin talking about this book. I really didn't love it, but it was very engaging and intriguing, so that kept me reading. It's essentially a specific kind of "book candy" (it's not a good book, but it's compelling in a way I'm not sure I fully understand and makes me want to keep reading).
This follows our main protagonist, Damen, a prince from Akielos whose father was killed and his half-brother sent him off to be a slave in a neighboring kingdom. His master is the cruel and cold prince of Vere, Laurent. What follows is a story of cruelty, survival, pain, political intrigue and cultural clashes.
As I said above, I wasn't a huge fan of this book. I really enjoyed my time with it because of the plot and the politics. The characters aren't that loveable and I feel like we really don't know much about them by the end of the book. Plus the things Laurent put Damen through? That's a kind of trauma that doesn't sit right with me for any kind of relationship they form, even if it were to be resolved later.
The amount of rape, CSA and torture is a lot and was really rough for me to read.
Some people have said this is a sort of gay GoT and I can sort of see what they mean.
All in all, I didn't love this, but it's intriguing enough for me to want to continue on. Definitely "book candy" for me.
This follows our main protagonist, Damen, a prince from Akielos whose father was killed and his half-brother sent him off to be a slave in a neighboring kingdom. His master is the cruel and cold prince of Vere, Laurent. What follows is a story of cruelty, survival, pain, political intrigue and cultural clashes.
As I said above, I wasn't a huge fan of this book. I really enjoyed my time with it because of the plot and the politics. The characters aren't that loveable and I feel like we really don't know much about them by the end of the book. Plus the things Laurent put Damen through? That's a kind of trauma that doesn't sit right with me for any kind of relationship they form, even if it were to be resolved later.
The amount of rape, CSA and torture is a lot and was really rough for me to read.
Some people have said this is a sort of gay GoT and I can sort of see what they mean.
All in all, I didn't love this, but it's intriguing enough for me to want to continue on. Definitely "book candy" for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, Body horror, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Toxic relationship, Blood, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Animal death, Death, Incest, Infidelity, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and War
ciuli's review against another edition
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Look, I have to say that if you manage to ignore 90% of the story and the plot and only focus on the main characters, then I could probably say that this book was enjoyable.
The whole first part of the book made me wish I could scrub my brain with soap just so I could forget everything that I had read so far. While I do understand that the whole plot of this book surrounds slavery and how they are the slaves are treated depending on the country's culture, I also believe that having people casually rape each other every now and then could have easily been avoided.
I knew what kind of themes I would have encountered reading this book, I had read some reviews here and there, but it felt like reading glorified porn in some parts and that's just something I don't like, but that's my taste and my opinion.
Regarding the characters, boy did I NOT like Damen, AT ALL!
man had me wishing I could slap him irl, and a the time he was supposed to be the one I felt pity for! He is completely disconnected from the real world, thinks his country and people are so much better than everyone else just because they treat their slaves better, while completely missing the point considering how they do have slaves as well ðŸ˜
I like Laurent, I like his scheming mind and how smart he is with everything, I like how he is always 10 steps ahead of you and you don't even know it. Is he a perfect character? Absolutely not, he almost had someone rapes in front of him and almost flogged Damen to death, but we know there's more to it and I'm curios to see what's to come!
The whole first part of the book made me wish I could scrub my brain with soap just so I could forget everything that I had read so far. While I do understand that the whole plot of this book surrounds slavery and how they are the slaves are treated depending on the country's culture, I also believe that having people casually rape each other every now and then could have easily been avoided.
I knew what kind of themes I would have encountered reading this book, I had read some reviews here and there, but it felt like reading glorified porn in some parts and that's just something I don't like, but that's my taste and my opinion.
Regarding the characters, boy did I NOT like Damen, AT ALL!
man had me wishing I could slap him irl, and a the time he was supposed to be the one I felt pity for! He is completely disconnected from the real world, thinks his country and people are so much better than everyone else just because they treat their slaves better, while completely missing the point considering how they do have slaves as well ðŸ˜
I like Laurent, I like his scheming mind and how smart he is with everything, I like how he is always 10 steps ahead of you and you don't even know it. Is he a perfect character? Absolutely not, he almost had someone rapes in front of him and almost flogged Damen to death, but we know there's more to it and I'm curios to see what's to come!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Sexual harassment, and Classism
Moderate: Pedophilia
lou702's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book has very explicit and heavy topics in it. I did not enjoy those part but they made the experience of the book different and made it worthwhile, since the characters are acting and reacting on those parts, which makes it bearable and better to read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Murder, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Cursing, and Blood
evilovesyou's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and War
poisonviolet's review against another edition
DNF 60%
MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING
what the actual f$ck...
There is two reasons I made it to 60%... 1. I don't want to be a quitter, I have 100 books to read this year and I have started off the year strong. and 2. I was waiting for the cliche moment when the main character awoke and realized this was all a deranged dream and promptly checked himself into a mental institution.
Thank lord I am reading Iron Flame right now, because I feel like I would never touch a book again for months based on what this book did. I literally did not touch my Kindle for a few days even to read Iron Flame because I knew this madness was on the Kindle. I feel so terrible for my poor Kindle who I will have to cleanse thoroughly with incense.
I went into this book completely blind, which I presume is the only reason why anyone ever picked up this book because if I had read what it was about I would have never gone close to it. All I knew about it was that it was gay. Of course, thats all I would need to pick up a book, but no longer will I ever be so naive.
I should've known I'd be in for it when the first page of the book is just a list that tells you who the characters are in the world and their ranks in the kingdom or whatever you want to call it. Cool. It was a pain in the butt having to refer to it constantly to try and have any idea who was saying anything and who they were. Like sure, maybe that's useful but try and write this in the story, it felt like a fanfiction with all the character tags (nothing against fanfiction). It just felt like such lazy writing to me. Not saying I could do any better, but come on...
Then I trudge along and get a sense of where we are going with the plot. I wanted to projectile vomit. Let me tell you I was shaking and near a freaking panic attack reading this. I have never read a book that made me feel so sick and filthy for even looking at it. I hate even writing this review and having my name attached to it because I want no association with this book. But alas, I have to yap and I have never in my life deeply hated a book so much.
I don't understand the appeal. This is literally a book about horrible people doing horrible things. Not in a cute and quirky or morally grey way, just flat-out being the most disgusting and ruthless human beings. I have since read reviews after deleting this from my Kindle and people are gushing about these characters... talking about how they are "the cutest" and their favorite book characters of all time.... THE CHARACTERS WHO LITERALLY R@PE PEOPLE AND HAVE NO SHAME IN IT WHATSOEVER!
I am not one to judge, but you have to be joking right? The main character literally admitted to r@ping his own personal pleasure sl@ve (which right there... why the hell do you have one of those?! Who is this author and are they either in jail or far removed from society because I am honestly scared for humanity) while another man r@pes him.
I seriously don't understand how people are into this kind of thing. I tried to finish it, I really did. If only so I could rant and not have people fact-checking me. But I'm disgusted with myself that I got this far through it. When will I learn that some things just really don't get any better? or for that matter, some things just aren't good AT ALL!
I thought I was going to get a emotion-filled story of a prince who was captured (I was getting this from the title) and who was then rescued by another prince and they fell in love. But NOOOOOO.
UGH, I swear if someone tells me this gets better and that I should have just finished it I will scream. I don't understand how these characters can be even close to redeemable even if they did change. Sorry, but I have no desire to read any more about filthy human beings that are doing the bs done in the book.
Okay, I'm finishing this rant here because I'm going to throw up thinking about this horror for too long.
Save yourselves and don't pick up this sh$t show.
MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING
what the actual f$ck...
There is two reasons I made it to 60%... 1. I don't want to be a quitter, I have 100 books to read this year and I have started off the year strong. and 2. I was waiting for the cliche moment when the main character awoke and realized this was all a deranged dream and promptly checked himself into a mental institution.
Thank lord I am reading Iron Flame right now, because I feel like I would never touch a book again for months based on what this book did. I literally did not touch my Kindle for a few days even to read Iron Flame because I knew this madness was on the Kindle. I feel so terrible for my poor Kindle who I will have to cleanse thoroughly with incense.
I went into this book completely blind, which I presume is the only reason why anyone ever picked up this book because if I had read what it was about I would have never gone close to it. All I knew about it was that it was gay. Of course, thats all I would need to pick up a book, but no longer will I ever be so naive.
I should've known I'd be in for it when the first page of the book is just a list that tells you who the characters are in the world and their ranks in the kingdom or whatever you want to call it. Cool. It was a pain in the butt having to refer to it constantly to try and have any idea who was saying anything and who they were. Like sure, maybe that's useful but try and write this in the story, it felt like a fanfiction with all the character tags (nothing against fanfiction). It just felt like such lazy writing to me. Not saying I could do any better, but come on...
Then I trudge along and get a sense of where we are going with the plot. I wanted to projectile vomit. Let me tell you I was shaking and near a freaking panic attack reading this. I have never read a book that made me feel so sick and filthy for even looking at it. I hate even writing this review and having my name attached to it because I want no association with this book. But alas, I have to yap and I have never in my life deeply hated a book so much.
I don't understand the appeal. This is literally a book about horrible people doing horrible things. Not in a cute and quirky or morally grey way, just flat-out being the most disgusting and ruthless human beings. I have since read reviews after deleting this from my Kindle and people are gushing about these characters... talking about how they are "the cutest" and their favorite book characters of all time.... THE CHARACTERS WHO LITERALLY R@PE PEOPLE AND HAVE NO SHAME IN IT WHATSOEVER!
I am not one to judge, but you have to be joking right? The main character literally admitted to r@ping his own personal pleasure sl@ve (which right there... why the hell do you have one of those?! Who is this author and are they either in jail or far removed from society because I am honestly scared for humanity) while another man r@pes him.
I seriously don't understand how people are into this kind of thing. I tried to finish it, I really did. If only so I could rant and not have people fact-checking me. But I'm disgusted with myself that I got this far through it. When will I learn that some things just really don't get any better? or for that matter, some things just aren't good AT ALL!
I thought I was going to get a emotion-filled story of a prince who was captured (I was getting this from the title) and who was then rescued by another prince and they fell in love. But NOOOOOO.
UGH, I swear if someone tells me this gets better and that I should have just finished it I will scream. I don't understand how these characters can be even close to redeemable even if they did change. Sorry, but I have no desire to read any more about filthy human beings that are doing the bs done in the book.
Okay, I'm finishing this rant here because I'm going to throw up thinking about this horror for too long.
Save yourselves and don't pick up this sh$t show.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Sexual harassment
nyxthecactus's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
Why is there a rape scene? Like, it was so unnecessary and disgusting. I hate it. Thank you very much, I'll pass. The half a star is because it was a fast read. Not enjoyable one, but fast.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Violence
amallard's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Sorry for reading this. I'm not proud of me either.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, and Sexual harassment
meepmeepmia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I have read this series a few times, I always think this is the lowest of the three. Just as how it is written you don't really get a full picture till you have read everything, so while this may be gritty and certain character may be down right un readable for those who like a good pay off keep going!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Pedophilia, Racism, and Rape
Minor: Cursing, Death, Drug use, Incest, Sexual assault, Torture, and Death of parent
livelaughlesbian99's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
3.75
This book is messed up!
And that’s kind what it’s supposed to be, so I’m not judging my rating on that. This takes place in a brutal world where slavery is normalized across many cultures. If that does not sound like a horror you can stomach do not read this book. I can understand why some say this romanticizes slavery, but I saw it more as trying to explore how cultures of the past treated sexual slavery (which is a horrific but prominent part of the human past… this content isn’t based off of nothing. Ancient Greeks and Romans had cultural practices similar to the practices in the book).
Personally I appreciate the focus on how those who were enslaved would have been impacted by societies like this. Between Damen and Erasmus’ perspective you learn a lot about how these systems are justified. I do not believe including morally wrong beliefs in characters means the text condones them. But I completely understand why people have issues with this book and it’s fine if you do. For me books with subject matter like this are also horror books, and like horror books, there can be catharsis in exploring the worst of humanity.
That being said, oh my GOD did I love this book’s political intrigue. It really is as good as people say. While this book is really preamble for the rest of the series, which is why I rated it the way I did, the ending was fantastic.
And that’s kind what it’s supposed to be, so I’m not judging my rating on that. This takes place in a brutal world where slavery is normalized across many cultures. If that does not sound like a horror you can stomach do not read this book. I can understand why some say this romanticizes slavery, but I saw it more as trying to explore how cultures of the past treated sexual slavery (which is a horrific but prominent part of the human past… this content isn’t based off of nothing. Ancient Greeks and Romans had cultural practices similar to the practices in the book).
Personally I appreciate the focus on how those who were enslaved would have been impacted by societies like this. Between Damen and Erasmus’ perspective you learn a lot about how these systems are justified. I do not believe including morally wrong beliefs in characters means the text condones them. But I completely understand why people have issues with this book and it’s fine if you do. For me books with subject matter like this are also horror books, and like horror books, there can be catharsis in exploring the worst of humanity.
That being said, oh my GOD did I love this book’s political intrigue. It really is as good as people say. While this book is really preamble for the rest of the series, which is why I rated it the way I did, the ending was fantastic.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, and Murder
Moderate: Death, Pedophilia, and War