Reviews with content warning for War - The Blood Trials

I’m simply speechless. This was a stunningly written book that is a guaranteed emotional roller coaster. The way it dealt with racism, misogynoir, sexism and their intersection with certain privileges was perfectly executed.

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booksandcurlz's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious tense fast-paced

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

I seriously loved this book and feel like it deserves more praise and more eyeballs.

What I ❤️

♥️ Ikenna - she was intelligent, cunning, but also have issue with restraint and always let the anger get the best of her.

♥️ Reed - he was loyal, fair, with a high EQ, willing to admit he was wrong and always knew when to apologize for it.

♥️ The trials - 😮‍💨 The trials were BRUTAL, and what Ikenna went through WOW

♥️ The political maneuvering - how the Tribunals conspired, the incident at the Khanai kingdom, what happened in the trials (what really happened)
♥️ All the action, there was a great amount of action and that kept my attention.

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amberswips's review against another edition

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3.0

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risaleel's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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miraileah's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

5.0?? I really loved this. I couldn’t put the book down, and now that I’m finished my mind is spinning. I loved that this was a genre bender, it made total sense and the book was absolutely better for the inclusion of all of the different elements. The prose was visceral and transporting, and I loved Ikenna as a protagonist.

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kittykels's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative 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

4.0

The main issue I had with the audiobook narration was the childish voices for the adult characters. They're young adults, but the voices often sounded more like young teens in early high school or maybe even middle school. It was very hard to hear those voices depicting sex and very graphic violence. If she were narrating a different story, I don't think I'd have as much issue with her narration. And I did not have issue with the adult content except when paired with the voices.

Now with that out of the way, the story itself is really good and interesting, but needed some more refining. The last few hours felt very info-dumpy. The information was important, but it was a boring delivery for the most part.

The two best friends of the main character are a weird choice. I won't say too much to avoid spoilers, but they don't really make sense as a friend group and there's no reason to feel emotionally attached to them.

It's also hard to get behind Ikenna's motivations for her actions because we don't meet her grandfather on the page, we only have her memories. We're just told he's great and that's supposed to be enough to fuel her quest and for us to be interested in that quest.

I wish there was a little more depth to Ikenna. I don't dislike her as a character, but the only emotion we get from her is anger. Sometimes she's contemplative, but that usually just leads her to being angry again. There's nothing wrong with anger and she has very good reasons to be angry, but it's not enough for us to connect with her as a person and what she's going through. We should also have experienced her grief (especially her grief) and her joy and whatever else. Some of the major events were hard to care about from her perspective because we don't really get that emotional connection. I guess it could be argued that perhaps this is an intentional choice, and Ikenna is using anger to suppress her feelings of grief and any other emotion that could distract her from her goal. I could buy this for external purposes, but it's not convincing within her private thoughts.

I do look forward to the next book and really hope to see some improvements to the characters and our emotional attachments to them.

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erincrichter's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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raspberryvanguard's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

Ms. Davenport you have outdone yourself sister!!!! I’m not even a science fiction gworlll and I was hooked!!! Wasn’t going into this expecting to regard nor rate it as high as I am. World building, excellent! Despite being fictional, the sudy of Black female anger/rage through Kenna was great, it was explored because she TOO, has VIABLE reasons to be angry, furious, and indignant; not the madwoman, base portrayals we’re given through stereotypes. Black women are entitled to emotions, especially anger. I put my library hold on the second book before I was even done this one. Well done!!!

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