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Content snapshot
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Violence
A lot
Significant action violence throughout — Abercrombie's combat is visceral and consequential
Language
Some
Some strong language in Abercrombie's gritty fantasy register
Sexual Content
Barely any
Some romantic content; nothing explicit
Substance Use
Barely any
Moderate drinking
Emotional Intensity
Some
The cost of becoming a fighter — what it does to a person to be good at killing; the specific loneliness of being told you are wrong about what you are
What this book is about
Thorn Bathu has always wanted to fight. When she's expelled from her warrior training after killing a boy in sparring, she's given an unlikely second chance: join a diplomatic mission across the Shattered Sea as one of its fighters. The mission is led by Father Yarvi and accompanied by Brand, a boy with a strong arm and a weak stomach for violence. Abercrombie's second Shattered Sea novel shifts perspective to Thorn — rougher, funnier, more action-driven than the first — and examines what a girl who has been told her whole life that she is wrong discovers when she's finally right. A coming-of-age story that doesn't shy away from what coming of age in a brutal world actually means.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
graphic violence in combat
second of three books
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