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Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Arany ​enklávék by Naomi Novik

9 reviews

astrangewind's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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

Naomi Novik wants to hurt me 
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geckotigerwolf's review against another edition

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

4.75

Really enjoyed the first two up until the ending of the second which was confusing and seemingly nonsensical. Glad I stuck with it, this was everything I loved about the earlier books and the book two ending was fixed in book three as well.

I love latter books of a series that cause you to have horrifying realisations about the earlier books, and this had them in spades. 
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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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

What the hell, Novik did it again.

I was getting really frustrated with the first half of the book. At least three times, a character would say a couple of sentences and then El would explain a ton of inferred details to us for several pages. We had some important plot threads established, and pages were ticking by with no progress being made on them. El spent a lot of time not doing a damn thing, thinking for pages about how she didn't know what to do. There was a decent chunk spent on her wanting to accomplish something I thought was extremely stupid and didn't understand her motives - and then, at almost the 50% mark, the chess pieces were finally all on the board and the game began.

I kept saying to myself "there's no way she can solve [plot thread] in [pages left]" and then she DID over and over again until I had every answer I wanted. I actually want to go back and reread the prior two books knowing what I know now, because the reveals in this book were set up long before she started drafting it, there's just no way. It is a little bit of a spoiler to say this, so just skip over it, but watching El walk away from Omelas made me cry. In this present moment of multiple genocides and an ongoing, stubbornly-ignored pandemic, it hit me just right. "You got us all out for good, and they're trying to start a war over the bones. There's a better way. We know there's a better way. And you're trying to find it." 
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torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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

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rinku's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

2.0

The Golden Enclaves is yet another series finale that disappointed me this year. Almost everything that made the first two books great is gone now, and the finale itself was just not satisfying and barely gave any conclusion. I lowered my rating a bit to 2 stars since there’s nothing really that I enjoyed about it. 

Of course, the main conflict is just as dramatic as ever. Orion was left behind at the Scholomance and El wants to get him out of it, while also finding a way to end the attacks on the enclaves. This sounds great on paper, but the execution wasn’t great. One of the reasons his that El just has no plans for everything and just vegetates for most of the story which became boring and annoying quite fast. It takes them a fourth of the book until they make a plan to save Orion and half of the book until they finally return to Scholomance. I really liked the atmosphere there and I wish that our character would’ve spend more time there. Most of the time though, I wasn’t really understanding what was happening which made it extra boring for me. I was especially irritated by the enclaves and didn’t really understand who fighting whom for what reasons. 

Another thing I just didn’t like about the plot was the focus on the maw mouths. I find them so disgusting and hated them from the beginning, so I wasn’t happy with this. Learning their origin was extra terrifying. In general, there is just nothing positive about being a wizard or living in this world. This is of course okay and not every book needs to be positive, but for me personally, it was just a bit too much. I recently had an idea for a novel where humans have to fight for their survival just like animals do, and I think that this is maybe the vibe Novik wanted to achieve with the series. 

Additionally, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the ending itself. It was nice to see the graduates working together but I hated that
Orion is apparently a maw mouth which was just so weird, his mother is so evil. Furthermore, like I’ve said above, there’s just no sense of closure. There’s nothing good about the ending, and El even says that she thinks that nothing will change in the end since new enclaves will be created anyways which is just so unsatisfying. Why was I even following the characters then
? 

Still, the novel had some great emotional moments, like El returning to her home or her getting angry at Orion’s dad. I also still like how she tries to fight the classism of the enclave system. I furthermore always love to see how novels integrate magic into our world, and it was nice that they were travelling around the world for different missions. 

Another problem I had is that because Orion is not with El for most of the story and not himself, their amazing dynamic is just gone. I generally hated how weird Orion behaved throughout this novel but compared to many other reviewers,
I didn’t have a problem with El and Liesel
. Besides this though, I still liked to be in El’s head, and she felt much like a real person. 

Yeah, the Scholomance is a series that I won’t be re-reading in the future; it was just too negative even for me. I believe that it should’ve been a duology, ending with our main characters destroying Scholomance and fleeing from it, maybe undermining the enclave system by doing so, or something. But it seems to me that Novik just didn’t want this kind of happy ending and extended on this whole enclave conflict that was just not too interesting, sadly. 
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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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chamaeleontis's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.75

I loved this book. It was a great way to end the series. But I was a little disappointed by the ending (rushed and has a trope I don’t like), or it would have been 5 stars.
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uranaishi's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful 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? No

4.5

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relin's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

A satisfying ending to the books prior. Getting to see all of the characters you love and care about figure out the final parts of what to do next is incredibly rewarding. This book is a lot of how even if you are the most powerful, the ties and work of the community are what really makes things possible. Would happily reread. Even though it made me cry.
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