Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Принц Терний

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Принц Терний by Марк Лоуренс, Лидия Дукорская, Mark Lawrence

7 reviews

meemee_darosa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

I'll give this book two stars, merely for the fact that it's written excellently.

I'll reiterate what others have said - Jorg being 13-14 years old is unbelievable to the point of distraction. Even with the life events that set Jorg on his path, I don't think on its own it is enough to have made him do the evil and unforgivable things he does at his age. We get an explanation...? for what truly might be driving him, and as the reader you think, "ah! ok, I *guess* that has redeemed the past 60% of this book." But then Jorg goes out of his way to *explicitly tell the reader* "no, no - I am 100% evil and those choices were my own. I regret nothing."

My other main critique is that Jorg moves through the plot almost exclusively on luck. I have not read many fantasy books, so forgive me if main characters escaping every dire situation on sheer luck is a mandatory or desired trope in the genre, but goodness - almost every moment where Jorg was about to die or fail in some plan, he is saved by luck or a stroke of genius that is closer to straight-up divine intervention than an expression of intelligence.

I'm glad I pushed through when I wanted to DNF at 10%, because I'm trying to get more exposure to the genre, but wouldn't read again or continue with the rest of the series.

Content Warnings

garrettcz's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny 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

5.0

I loved this book so much I immediately read the entire trilogy, which rarely happens for me. I Couldn’t put any of them down! This series is really great. Dark as hell, but great. Check the content warnings for sure.

Content Warnings

whirl's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

An excellent anti-hero, dark and grim but captivating and interesting

Content Warnings

caia_in_wonderland's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

Interesting story this one of Jorg, the Prince caught in the thorns watching the ones he loves the most die while unable to stop it.
When you meet him he is a savage, brutal, uncaring, ruthless kid, only thirteen, which kind of boggles the mind. But, I guess it is the Broken Empire and there are explanations and manipulations but there’s still a lot of violence that felt a bit too gratuitous and less mentions to rape would have tasted much better, still we end up realising everything has a reason, somewhat.
The plot is solid, sometimes leading places you would never guess, which makes it surprising and fun, but then gore, again. It’s the authors choice I guess.
The writing is pretty good, but both plot and writing in the author’s Book of the Ancestor trilogy are far superior, which is one of the reasons for my rating too.
The ending was not bad, not too much of a cliffhanger, just enough for you to know what’s what and making clear that he will be likely a bit older on the next book but his aim the same. How he will get there? Well I want to find out.

Content Warnings