Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Arany ​enklávék by Naomi Novik

37 reviews

paper_elytra's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

The conclusion of the Scholomance series. Compelling and powerful, El's furious railing against the inequalities of society and power is tempered with understanding and a willingness to take uncomfortable action. While moments of humour shine through, this installment has an emotional depth and complexity that shows how much the characters have grown. 
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herasrevenge88's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional 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

3.0

I’m honestly kind of sad that I had to give this only three stars because I had such high hopes for this book. The first 50% of this book I was bored out of my mind but I just kept hoping that it was going to get better. It did get better. It really picked up and was really really good and made me laugh out loud a couple of times….for the last 50% of it. I feel like the first 50%. might’ve been better summarized in a paragraph or two so that way we could just jump into the story. It might’ve made for a really short book but at least I would not have had to sit through 200 pages of awful.
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alyssasaurus's review against another edition

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

4.5

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keen's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • 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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caramiaculpa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

This series really stuck the landing. It really drives home that a good system cannot be built on rotten foundations.
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oliverreeds's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

5.0

absolutely crushed
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trips's review against another edition

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

2.0

 It just....wasn't a very good conclusion to this series.
The cliff hanger at the end of the 2nd book of course made readers race to get this book, only to be met with a lot of...info dumps that felt unnecessary with it being the finale book, traversing the world with a lot of El angst that was understandable but a bit much, and a conclusion that felt like "ehm...thats it?" in my opinion.

I don't have any problem with El's
foray into a kinda weird sapphic sex relationship with Liesl. I thought it was more amusing than anything because Liesl wanted her harem but in the end, El got more of one (lol).


What I didn't like is that I couldn't feel anything for Orion. I wanted to, what he had done to him was awful but it just wasn't written in a way where I truly felt like "wow this poor kid" instead it was like "well, he seems to be doing ok" (and I don't like that! I should've been crying after it was revealed what
Ophelia
did to him but it just didn't work for me. With that, the villain also fell flat, perhaps because they weren't there all that much, or because of everything written above.

Disappointing, I feel most sad for all the people who love El and Orion together as they got so little in this book! 
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mairead_parade's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

I really enjoyed this series and thought this was a clever and satisfying final book, with some serious emotional gut punches. Novik forces her characters to grow up and reckons with the true costs and inequalities of the society she's imagined in a much more real way than a lot of other teen magic fantasy, which I appreciated. This series also escalates the “big bad” from book to book in an interesting and surprising way that changed my perspective on the previous installments.
My main quibbles are that the ending is a little too tidy, especially in contrast to a lot of the more brutal choices Novik makes in the rest of the series. El and Orion also spent very little on-page time together, which made sense in terms of the plot, but I lost some of the investment in their relationship that I had at the end of book two.
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ashlikes's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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? No

3.0

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le3713's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional 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? It's complicated

4.5

Seldom is the final book in a trilogy my favorite, but this one was. The sometimes slow work of understanding the world, magic system, and social order Novik had built paid off in this book. I loved understanding mana, malia, and maw mouths better. It still took me a good chunk of time to get through, but I was deeply invested through the second half. I didn’t anticipate the turns the book would take, and found the ending satisfying - hopeful but not quite happily ever after.
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