Reviews with content warning for Blood - Trail of Lightning

I think what I read of the book was fine. It's a post-apocalyptic earth with gods and monsters aplenty but I didn't like the main characters. It's right at the point where I stopped (almost halfway through the book) when you finally start getting some explanations about what is going on/how things work and it wasn't interesting to me.

I don't want to force myself to finish another book I am not enjoying and my tentative rating before quitting the book was somewhere in the 2 star region.

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lilifane's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-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

I usually don't read urban fantasy, and I wouldn't have picked this book up on my own. But it was recommended to me based on my personal references... and it worked. I loved the world building a lot. And sometimes that's actually all I need to enjoy a book, tbh. Loved the post-apocalyptic vibes, loved the Native American influence, the myths and legends and magic. Although the characters weren't perfect, I loved them and their interactions as well. Maggie, the protagonist, has anger issues and impulse control issues and abandonment issues and commitment issues, but for some reason she didn't annoy me. It's understandable where she comes from, and the other characters help to balance everything out. There was not much plot and the bits that were there were very chaotic. But it kind of made sense to me. And I loved that it felt a lot like an Episode (or make it a season) of Supernatural as well as an action-adventure game, where you start out with a clear goal but get distracted by all the side quests along the way. :D

I will say that the showdown/finale/revelations at the end were the weakest part of the story. Half of it was too predictable, half came out of nowhere. But this didn't take anything away from my reading experience. So objectively, this is not a perfect book, but it was perfect for me.

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devy_ka's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious 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

2.5

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booksthatburn's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

TRAIL OF LIGHTING is a bright light in my reading life, a book with urban fantasy feels but nary a city in sight. Maggie is conflicted and messy, with a supernatural ability to bring death (helped by her gun and very large knife) and not much help reconciling that with the rest of herself.

It's about legacies of trauma and the nature of monstrosity, as Maggie grapples with her understanding of herself. Is she a person who kills monsters? Or a monster who's trying to take other monsters down with her/ Part of this is shown early on when she deliberately withholds her expected part of a culturally important greeting, not wanting to show this part of herself to people she is technically in community with. She feels alienated from them by her deeds. Complicating this is the fact that she's useful to them for the very thing that makes them feel uncomfortable around her, i.e. her talent for death which she uses for monster hunting and retribution.

I love the worldbuilding and setting, blending real climate change fears with Indigenous (specifically Diné) mythology to create a new world from the remains of our own. Some things are directly explained, especially if they relate to her personal history or the particular quirks of this particular dystopian existence, but a lot of specific definitions are left to context clues.

I enjoyed this portrayal of Coyote, Maggie's interactions with him are interestingly tense. I like Kai, he seems like a good counterbalance for Maggie. My few complaints about him have excellent in-story justifications which come together in the end and turn them from annoying to appropriately mysteriously and foreshadow-y.

The big reveal is excellent, I'm very pleased by that part of the ending. This was great and I'm excited for the next one!

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