Reviews with content warning for Torture - Five Dark Fates

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Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake

11 reviews

kassidyreads's review

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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maple_dove's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Favorite Quotes:

"Give him to me," Mathilde says, and holds out her arms. The baby reaches for her and gurgles. "I was near when your light came into the world, and I will always sense when it is near."

Little Katharine. Gone as Little Mirabella is gone, and how she mourns them. How all women must mourn the loss of those little girls, relegated to shadow as they grow.

(One of) My Favorite Scene(s):

!!!HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

The mist is rising, racing up alongside the dead queens. It swoops up above them and dives back down, swallowing them whole and tearing them apart, spitting wisps of blackness into the sky. Arsinoe and Pietyr freeze as they stare at the battle, the dead queens shrieking, becoming a maelstrom of writhing arms and bared teeth, as the mist wraps around and around them.
The dead queens do not stand a chance. The mist devours. The mist protects. Arsinoe sees the queens of old, hidden inside its depths. She sees Illiann and even Daphne. She feels Mirabella's might as the mist crashes against the Volroy like a thunderstorm. She recognizes Katharine in the sharp, twisting quickness as it slices strands of darkness and casts them off in ribbons. She sees them fight, for her and the island, until all that remains of the dead queens are tatters and ashes floating in the air.
[...]
"It was them," she says, panting. "Mirabella and Katharine."
"It was them," Pietyr agrees, and knocks his head against the stone. "And now it is finished."

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grayscale08's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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? No

4.0

4 ⭐ CW: violence, torture, blood, gore, death, war

Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake is the fourth and final book in the Three Dark Crowns series. This is such a good and underrated YA fantasy series! So many strong female characters, a cool magic system, a matriarchal society, and lovable and dynamic characters. Warning for spoilers of previous books.

This book did a great job bringing the series to an exciting climax and satisfying conclusion. I loved seeing how each of the sisters grew and changed throughout the four books. I love that it was a story about sisters, and about how none of them were what they were supposed to be. Mirabella, the oldest and a strong elemental unwilling to harm or fight others; Katherine, the youngest raised as a poisoner, but giftless and possessed by the dead; and Arsinoe, raised as a naturalist while actually being a poisoner, who ultimately, was only really good at low magic. The island needed them all, while breaking the line of queens.

I love that Jules got more of a role in this book as the Legion Queen. She's our powerful bisexual babe. I also liked the unexpected growth of Pietyr Renard. He's not someone I really liked in the other books, but he kind of grew on me. This edition also had a bonus epilogue, so we got a really cute reunion scene. I really want to be friends with Camden (cougar) and Braddock (brown bear).

This is a great series if you like dark fantasy, different types of magic, sister dynamics, animal companions, and political intrigue.

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cardlikecredit's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This one was way more intense than the previous books but a pretty solid wrap up. Not for the faint of heart though.

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pagesbycaroline's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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pageafter_paige's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

This final book wrapped up the series better than I had anticipated. I laughed, I cried (twice), and I screamed throughout the story! The character arcs came full circle and really tore my heart out. Even though romance isn’t the focus of the book I am always rooting for Billy and Arsinoe so without the bonus epilogue I would’ve been in limbo. Overall great series and I found this book very fast paced

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esme_may's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I adored this! I'm so glad I decided to finish this series because it was so much better than the last one. An incredible end to the series

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rinku's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Just like its predecessor, Five Dark Fates couldn’t spark the same excitement in as like the first two books of the series. Maybe my 3.5 stars rating is a bit generous; I generally liked this book and the series but for some reason, I mainly focussed on the negative things in my review.

The revolution plot of the last book continues, and the rebels are still trying to overthrow Katharine. Mirabella has changed sides but it’s honestly good for her since she can be with her friends again and the rebels treated her terribly. This is one of the reasons I was not so invested in the revolution, and it only became interesting when

Billy got kidnapped by Katharine and in return, the rebels kidnapped Pietyr. I felt so sorry for Billy since he’s the only character in this series that is actually good

. Another amazing moment was

Katharine killing Mirabella so that the dead queens can’t take her over. This is such a defining moment for Mirabella, but it made me so mad because she was my favorite queen of the three

In general, the ending was dramatic and epic:

Katharine saves Arsinoe from death and then dies with the dead queens. I’m honestly mad that Arsinoe is the only queen surviving since she’s the most boring one; Jules of course is able to defeat Rho as well and survives. Already before, I’ve noticed the trend of YA books only telling and not showing us what happened after the big final battle; this is the case here again. I strongly dislike that Jules became the new queen because I don’t think that she’ll be a good queen and she doesn’t deserve to be in this position. I’m normally a fan of characters changing the status quo but here, they keep the monarchy going instead of using the opportunity to create a more democratic system

Coming to the characters, I’ll have to say that

I’m quite mad that only the boring characters survive

. The characters around Mirabella, who takes this great role as a mediator on in this novel, are so great and I love them. In comparison though, I really disliked the people around the rebellion. Emilia is the worst character in the entire series, I just hate how impulsive she is. Apparently, she’s in love with Jules but this love is barely shown on screen, and she just talks about it. Besides this, the other romances are also not that great.

All in all, the finale of the Three Dark Crowns series was a bit underwhelming. For me, the series started so amazingly with the first two books that had interesting conflicts and introduced us so well to the characters. Those are almost all thrown over in the last two books for an arbitrary revolution apparently every YA book needs. Don’t get me wrong, I love revolutions, but they get so predictable with the time. The ending of the series was also just not that great and I wished it had a different outcome. I’m honestly not sure if the series is worth it; probably when you’re invested in the characters and world after the first book like I was.

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emily_mh's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful 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

3.75

The best way to sum up my feelings about this book (and this series as a whole, really) is that nothing feels developed enough. It's like a cake. The core elements - the flour, sugar, eggs, etc. - are there, and they're good, but it wasn't put in the oven long enough so everything about it seems underbaked. Like you're about to sneeze and you know it's gonna be a good one, but it never comes. Or a 2D drawing that was meant to be a 3D rendering.

In terms of specifics, the ending action was pretty good.

Although the most important chapter in the whole book, where Katherine changes allegiance and Mirabella dies, came across as a sketch or an outline, so didn't feel like the momentous event that it was. Mira dying at this point before she could really made an impact also just turned her into a non-character for me.

But apart from that, I don't have much else to say.

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