Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

9 reviews

sskalon's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Death, Murder, Body horror, and Blood

catherinedsharp's review

This just wasn’t the book for me. I bought it years ago as a teenager and haven’t read it. The blurb is misleading in my opinion of what the text is, and there is very brutal treatment of characters done ‘out of love’ which just does not agree with me. 

This fantasy is an interesting premise but the cruelty it shows in comparison to the YA style of writing, just didn’t agree with me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Confinement, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Emotional abuse

hannahwhiteyy's review against another edition

hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This was a good first book to the series, but didn’t stand well on its own. The pacing and flow was spotty at times, yet faster in others. Yet overall, the plot was intriguing and I empathised with a lot of the characters.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Violence

Minor: Animal cruelty, Child death, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Suicide attempt, Cannibalism, and Torture

rosenau's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Gore, Murder, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Gaslighting, Death, Abandonment, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Vomit

emily_mh's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

A sentence that sums up how I feel about this book is: I'm glad I didn't buy it, but I am interested in what happens next. The best part about the book was its premise of three queens vying for the throne, and there was some good world-building surrounding this. Everything else was a bit meh. I didn't like the omniscient narration style, or that it was done in present tense. I think it was the reason behind the poor characterisation of literally every character (but ESPECIALLY Katharine's. Her POVs were... so bland). There was just no internal world for any of them. I was expecting big reactions from the sisters meeting for the first time in ten years, but it was literally "oh there's my sister on her platform" or "oh my sister's talking to me in this forest" which was incredibly disappointing. Flat characters also meant that all the romances fell flat. It was very insta-love. And on top of the characters being meh, the plot had no direction beyond the fact that Beltane was gonna happen in a couple of months. Literally nothing of consequence happened between the beginning and that point. And you'd expect with the whole book leading up to the Quickening, that event would have some impact. But it was over in 10 pages tops. On the whole I was just expecting a lot more from this book. What partially saved it was the unique world-building and the fact that I wasn't dreading picking it back up when I put it down - it was actually somewhat enjoyable and definitely easy to read. That's enough to make me pick up the sequel!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Violence, Death, Child death, Gore, Body horror, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Animal death, and Vomit

Minor: Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Ableism, Excrement, Confinement, Sexual content, and Eating disorder

soswiin's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

i tried so hard to like this book. you have no idea

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Vomit, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Eating disorder and Body shaming

booksthatburn's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-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

5.0

So that was dark and stressful.

THREE DARK CROWNS doesn't pull punches and lives up to its name. It's the kind of story where if you ask "does the dog die", the answer is not only "yes", but begs the follow-up "do you want to know the fates of any other animals?" In the canon of books where sisters raised apart must fight to the death for only one can be queen, this stands out for having understandable reasons why. There's a goddess who at least supposedly wants everything to go this way, but more importantly there are large, driven, and complex political factions full of individuals pushing for power and prestige. The triplets have been apart from each other and mistreated by their various handlers for nearly a decade, each one being told that the other two will be just as ready to kill her as she must be. The three sisters are very distinct from one another, and their various clusters of friends, allies, and manipulators were fascinating to read.  When things go wrong (and they just keep going wrong) there's a known reason (at least to the reader).  

The worldbuilding is detailed and vibrant. The three largest factions each are backing a Queen whose ability matches theirs, but there are two more power-based factions and then the (supposedly neutral) Temple. We learn that sometimes there are four babies instead of three, and other kinds of messiness that the power systems have worked around, redirected, or incorporated to their own ends. I love how these little explanations make it feel like a system that people within it might actually want to perpetuate, which is so vital for a story so full of deadly machinations and impetuous decisions. Arsinoe is my favorite character though I gradually warmed to Katherine and I like her much more by the end. I like how Mirabella is handled, but I didn't warm to her as a person. The Poisoners are my favorite faction, Natalia is a driven and manipulative guardian for Katherine, and Pietyr completes the picture in a way that's good for the plot but doesn't bode well for anyone around him. The nice thing about having the factions and multiple protagonists is it feels like there's room to like and dislike any permutation of characters as people and still enjoy the story. 

I love the ending, the last chapter transformed my general interest into needing to get the next book as soon as I feel emotionally recovered from this one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Sexual content, Alcohol, Vomit, Violence, Body horror, Body shaming, Medical content, Medical trauma, Self harm, Suicide, Child death, and Murder

Minor: Death of parent

teddieplaysbass's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Violence

swiftie13's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It took me a while to acclimate to the simplistic and slightly bland writing style, but once I did, I found the characters and plot to be rather captivating. This world is dark and brutal, and the plot is full of twists and turns that you'll never see coming. I can't rate it very high because the first half was just way too slow-paced for my taste, but eventually, I found myself enjoying it a lot. Will read the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror and Torture

Minor: Animal death and Animal cruelty