Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Before They Are Hanged

amazing follow up to the first book. I enjoyed this one a lot more, especially because of the character development of Jezal and Ferro (kinda). West went from me liking him to cheering him on to me being disgusted by him and I love it (get your misogyny checked tho, you're being insufferable).

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paige_t's review

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful 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

Usually with trilogies the second book is not as good as the first. But once again Joe Abercrombie’s stories just get better and better! So much character development occurred but so many questions still left unanswered! I need the third book ASAP!

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garrpla's review

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adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

From The Blade Itself spawns Before They are Hanged- a novel worthy of being its successor in the sense that it succeeds in almost every aspect that The Blade Itself was lacking.

Further development into the characters reveals a softer side of them, even those such as Jezel who I originally despised! It is also significantly darker and more violent than the previous novel, though the action for me added to the entertainment.

Before They are Hanged truly starts and continues to shape the direction of the trilogy, though the ending is not what we readers expect.

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lostkorok's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

An improvement over the first book, with more stakes and a bit more of the mysterious past disclosed to the readers.

Yet I feel political intrigues could have been better developed; some characters were removed without having had sufficient importance to the reader to actually care for them, the implications of their disappearance later explain by the author through other characters' dialogues. Not a good way to make one feel the stakes, or to connect with the situation.

There's also some sexual relationship starting in this book that feel a bit abrupt in their flourishing, as if they were written just for the sake of adding them, and not because character development or plot really built up to them (in my opinion).

All in all, still a good read, better than the first book I feel, but still short of a 5 for what I expected of this genre.

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