Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

43 reviews

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

What. Even. I have to wait until DECEMBER? I really can’t. The ending of this book is such a cliffhanger and a twist I was not anticipating. I enjoyed this book, but felt some of it could’ve been condensed. I also felt that some of the magic wasn’t explained as well as I would’ve liked, but all in all, this was a good part 2. The characters are embedded in my heart now, and I hope they all have a happy ending. 
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rexpostfacto's review against another edition

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4.0

So shit's really fucked huh
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jenniferbowman's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense slow-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

Great overall story, but would prefer a quicker pace that builds rather than multiple mini-events with lots of “waiting” time in between.
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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

My feelings from the first book hold steady - an entertaining popcorn read with the worst aspect by far being the romance. I groaned every time Xaden showed up because I knew I was going to be subjected to page-long kiss descriptions and poorly written sex scenes. Violet has so much stupid emotional drama over this boy, I hated it. It really dragged down the middle of this book, especially the jealously subplot. I kept reading because I wanted to know how the conflict with the venin was going to shake out and because I wanted to learn more about the dragons. There were some nice developments on that front, and the set up for the next book will keep me reading.

Some things stood as as really jarring. There is a returning minor character whose actions are all over the place in an illogical way. I cannot reconcile their behavior. It also bothers me that
torture is constantly portrayed as a valid and reliable way of getting information, when in real life torture is completely ineffective. The fact that the author is military-adjacent only makes me feel more sour about this.
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lindsayhwrites's review against another edition

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

3.5

It seems likely that the editor made Yarros change the structure of this book, because otherwise it makes no sense. Great descriptions, good spicy scenes, but the pacing was awful and the inner monologue was repetitive. I'd bet good money that the ending was meant to be the midpoint. I want to rate it higher for RY's sake but I'm not sure that's fair.
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alyanna_dm's review against another edition

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

3.75

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redpollrory's review against another edition

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

4.0

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bringmybooks's review against another edition

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

5.0

✨ 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 ✨ B̷O̷R̷R̷O̷W̷ B̷Y̷P̷A̷S̷S̷

Look, I haven't felt the way I feel about this fantasy series since my heyday of fantasy, aka 15-20 years ago. Are these books <b>the best</b> books ever written? No, of course not. I, for one, have never tried to say that they were. BUT AS I HAVE SAID RE: FOURTH WING, THEY ARE FREAKING FUN.

And I love reading them! I love the story (yes, even the parts that make no sense to me or that I have to reread numerous times to make sure I've got it all down). I love the characters. I LOVE THE DRAGONS. The sexy times are v sexy, the tense times are v tense, the danger times are v danger.

It's. Just. Freaking. Fun. 

And I can't wait for the next one.
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cait's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

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lunar_mermaid's review against another edition

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Because the authors violent colonial world view became really obvious both by being the second book in the series and the timing of the release of the book with the Palestinian holocaust. 

It’s violent in a really colonized way, with unnecessary death and weird justifications. It reads like kids playing at war as if that’s a good and necessary thing. As if children need to be violent and awful to survive a mysterious eastern other. When the truth is THEY are the monster their parents created and the “other” are just trying to live, not kill them. It was present in the first book but I didn’t catch it, now it screams colonization and I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. 

One example: She literally goes into detail about how these children soldiers make sure to dye their hair while hiding out at a traitor compound while they are supposed to be doing war games. Aren’t the teachers suspicious when they come back with freshly died hair when they were supposed to be barely surviving and on dragons? How did they find pink hair dye at the hidden revolutionary compound?!!! It just screams “girl boss”. “Isn’t it so cool that they have cool hair while murdering people?!!”

Another example which finally got me to DNF, which I hate doing, was when Violet justified the killing of her classmates. Said it was necessary to prepare her. With the ongoing genocide of Palestine it made me sick. Thinking of what lies and justifications the US and other white dominate countries have for why they have to bomb civilians. 

There are way more problems, like her disability, the main reason I read this book in the first place. Just like everything else her disability is appropriated and rings so shallow.  I have a literal connective tissue disease like Violet but I can tell you the representation is not real. I was so excited to see it and so disappointed to see that just like revolution in this book, it’s a stolen poor imitation of it. 

I recommend the 5th season if you want world building and actual revolution not just the aesthetic of revolution. 
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