Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

27 reviews

abicaro17's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

So in this sequel, Violet and Xaden are preparing to set up their rebel base and start their new year training. Violet struggles to control her signet and emotions following Xadens new assignment. After the trauma in Fourth Wing, Violet struggles to cope with Liams death and the revelation of her brother. To start on a positive note, I love that this was more like a spy novel with all the sneaking around and secrets. The increase in communication between Violet and Xaden is so needed and well handled. Onto the negatives, giving Xaden a crazy ex is so incredibly unnecessary emotionally that it makes me mad. This has almost no combat or actual training in it despite being a book set in a war college where soldiers train to fight. The lack of raw emotion that emanated from the first book is also pretty disappointing. I just feel like this was good conceptually but so rushed and under edited it loses all the charm that was present in book 1. Overall it was fine and I will read the next book but for me this is trending towards From Blood and Ash (great first book and terrible sequels). 

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rchulin1's review against another edition

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

5.0

Wow such an amazing book loved it just didn’t flow as much as I’d like and it wasn’t as lighthearted and funny as the first book understandably so since this book has a lot more tense moments 

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paulralph's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-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

5.0


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darkademiacookie's review against another edition

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hopeful mysterious slow-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

3.25

World building felt incomplete.
For example, they mentioned the different types of wyvern in Fourth Wing and no one elaborated when they could finally talk freely in Battle Brief and other classes, where you'd think they'd learn about the enemy with whatever information they had but not a single mention of the different wyvern happens until during the final battle. Not to mention they received books on venin from the Viscount and no one read them or mentioned what information was in there.
There were many incomplete ideas. I think this had potential but the execution just didn't hit. I also wish there was more real character development. 

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grayscale08's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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


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filipa_maia's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.0

What was this book? I feel like I was hit by a high speed dragon after finishing it.

I love this world and I love these characters. All of them. Even the villains... they are perfect, cruel, merciless...

The only reason this read isn't 5 stars is because the book has a lot of unnecessary stuff. The beginning is slow (but it was the same with 'Fourth Wing') but then the story gains the right momentum. I feel this book is unnecessary long: if they just talked - they share a mental bond, GOD, just mentally talk or whatever - many of the problems would be solved; and I think that are a lot of little details that were left without explanation.

But I don't want to judge too much, maybe all the explanations are in the next book! Yes, because after this ending I expect perfection for the third book. Everything MUST be ok. 

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s_r_sparrow's review against another edition

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adventurous tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I hated this more than the first book. The characters digressed, characters were brought back to life unnecessarily, and the story was very stereotypical and took tropes from the popular books that preceeded it. It was a waste of time

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jessthanthree's review against another edition

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

3.0


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nanastradamus's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Iron Flame is fast paced and has a great (if somewhat clumsy) story — entrapment via ‘one more chapter’. As I was expecting following Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros knows how to write a compelling story but misses the mark on great writing / prose. I appreciate the purposeful use of modern, plain English which makes the fantasy genre so much more accessible. But just because it’s written in plain(er) English doesn’t mean the book wouldn’t be even better to read if the prose made the reader feel something. There hasn’t been one line or phrase in either of the books that has made me stop and go over the beauty or mastery of what I’d just read before moving on. The only time Yarros has made me emotional was during
Liam’s death and when Violet hallucinates seeing him while being tortured
. With a bit more effort, she could make the whole book have that sort of effect. But maybe not prioritising spending much time on the writing itself was a purposeful decision.

The plot is packed, which was one of the book’s — and story’s — downfalls. It felt like too much was trying to be crammed into one book. The story would have benefitted from most (if not all) of the plot points and characters being more fleshed out.

As a side note, it feels like more effort was made in the first book to have an actively diverse cast of characters. There also wasn’t as much character development in this book, which is something the first one already lacked quite a bit. That being said, I loved seeing all of the characters, especially Violet, trust and rely on each other more and become a really solid unit.

All in all, the book was enjoyable with fantastic twists and turns. I loved the stronger focus on politics and war strategy, as well as the found family within the Iron Squad and its newcomers. It just seems like fast pacing is what’s being aimed for with this series to its own detriment. Even more so than Fourth Wing, Iron Flame feels too rushed, like developing both plot and character were sacrificed in favour of fitting as much in as possible. Which is bonkers, considering the book is 600+ pages long. The premise, world building, characters, and story are all so interesting and promising — I can only imagine how incredible this series would read if it were given the space to do so, with an author / editor / publishing house team that were willing to spend more time and care on it rather than prioritising churning the sequel out so quickly. Or maybe Rebecca Yarros just always writes this way.

But gosh darn did she get me and I read it in 13 hours, unable to put it down for long. So, I’m boo boo the fool.

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rosieholmes99's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

4.0


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