Reviews with content warning for Child death - The Serpent and the Wings of Night

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent

63 reviews

savvyrosereads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-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

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Oraya, the adopted daughter of the Nightborn Vampire King, enters a bloody competition in a quest to earn the power to survive in a deadly society.

I’ll be honest, I totally failed the buddy read this time around—mostly because I got too caught up in a different series. I also had a bit of a struggle getting into this one for some reason…it wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t clicking for me.

Fortunately, by the time I got about halfway through, this absolutely clicked. I was super entertained for the entire second half, and ultimately stayed up until absurd hours to finish reading because I just needed to know what happened. Some of the final reveals felt a bit predictable, but I still really enjoyed them, loved the relationship between Raihn and Oraya, and can’t wait to see where this goes in book 2!

CW: Violence (including sexual violence), blood/injury; torture; death (including death of children and death of parent)

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r3ader's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

5.0

The ending?!?? Oh. My. God. Not sure if the ending was brilliant or ruined everything?!??
This book was awesome. Like TRULY awesome. I recommend it to EVERYONE who loves romantasy (just as much as me).
This is one of these few books you read, that seem like they change the way you see the world.

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justinekorson's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This was such a good novel! I couldn't put it down. I was genuinely very enamored with this vampiric world and how Oraya fit into it as a human/not human (since she doesn't really consider herself human). I was glad that her father, Vincent (honestly a very weirdly normal name), clearly loved her. I was worried that by the end of the book I'd hate him when I found out he'd been manipulating her. In a way, he was, but in other books when this is true, the person doing the manipulating doesn't usually care for the MC or regret what they did. You could tell in the story that Vincent truly loved Oraya and wanted the best for her, even though he didn't tell her who she was to him. I also really enjoyed Rhaine as a character. He was very sincere and was clearly so in love with her. I'm glad that even though he lied to her he clearly would die for her, and was very sincerely apologetic about what happened. I'm excited to see how their stories end.

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kayceeisbookish's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

5.0

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erinkellyreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I think I'm torn on this one. I'd like to give it a 4, I think. I enjoyed reading it, and the tournament system was fun to read. I also don't know if I ever really came to love the characters? Except maybe poor Ibrahim. I'd like to learn more about the gods and how all that works. I'm going to read the second one. But I think I'm a little surprised after how much I've read people gush about this series.

((Also - and this is petty because I have read way too many vampire books and also all of Maas' work - I'm not a huge fan of winged vampires. Shapeshifting to have wings? Sure. Turning into animals a 'la the old myths? Of course. But... feather wings and bat wings? I dunno.))

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booksandladders's review

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adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.0

See this review and more on Books and Ladders!

Content Warning: blood, explicit sex scene, death of a parent, death of a loved one, violence, gore, fire, wounds, pain, mentions of rape and sexual assault

I really enjoyed this! I like when there's more than just your typical urban fantasy when it comes to the supernatural and this exceeded my expectations. I was enthralled with the trials and shocked with the twists. I really appreciated the worldbuilding and the way that it was laid out slowly as we learned more throughout the novel. Oraya is a great main character and I loved the transformation of her throughout the book.

The tempo of the book was great - it kept you intrigued and gave enough information and scenes of the trials without overwhelming you. Considering this was a long trial period with lengthy time in between, I appreciated the bouts of preparation and the way we went through the story without it being bogged down with montages.

I thought the trials were super interesting and a good showcase of what Oraya's skills already were and how she could think on her feet to adapt to her surroundings. The trials also gave us more information about the world and expanded our knowledge of what vampires were and who we could and couldn't trust. I really enjoyed seeing how Oraya was so focused on keeping her humanity while knowing she had to be a monster as well.

Oraya is definitely the star of this show, even with Raihn being the broody hot guy in it. I did like the evolution of their relationship from adversaries to more. It isn't quite enemies to lovers because until the Kejari started, they didn't really know one another and they started working together pretty quickly. Really, all of the people in the book were Oraya's enemies considering she was 1. in a trial for her life and 2. a human amongst vampires.

Raihn was a really interesting character and I enjoyed seeing him open up throughout the novel. I liked how he tried to keep his humanity and bring some of that out in Oraya. I appreciated the way he viewed the world and how he made Oraya (and us as the reader) question what is happening in her life. I did also enjoy their romance and thought it was a good slow burn for them.

The ending was really well done but it leaves you on a pretty big cliffhanger! I still think the experience of reading this one and then having to wait until June (to get it from the Tor published version) makes it an even better experience. My brain can now think of theories and ways to fill in some of the gaps and think about what may or may not happen next.

This is such a good story and I wanted to be able to read more immediately. I can't wait to get my hands on book two! Pre-order yours using my affiliate link to Bookshop.org.

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