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flopsiful's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Blood, Drug use, Murder, Gore, and Addiction
Moderate: Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Panic attacks/disorders, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, and Grief
Minor: Self harm
Re toxic friendship: one of protagonists relationships is like a domestic abusive relationship but they’re not actually in a relationship, she just has feelings for him. Re self harm: part of a magic ritual ceremony. Re panic attack/disorders: character has arachnophobia and there’s wolf-sized spiders; character has PTSD with flashbacks from parents death.dbguide2's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
It’s a very interesting concept – diamonds being used in magic, but not just any magic – blood magic. Which does have darker connotations. And I think (one of the reasons why) I became so disinterested in this book is because I thought there would be a much bigger emphasis on the whole blood magic thing, then it was barely touched on.
I actually had this whole paragraph about how Kohl takes in people that are like nearly dead or who don’t have many prospects, and then I finished the book and realised ‘oh no he’s actually really bad.’ Like he’s absolutely awful. A terrible, terrible person. I like that we’re told that he’s awful, but we’re also shown a little goodness, just enough to make us think he could be good. He is very good at manipulating people – which isn’t a good thing of course, but he thinks he’s a good guy and actually helping people – which makes him an even more complex written character – because we’re fooled into thinking he can be a good character.
I liked most of the other characters. Tannis was my favourite side character – I wish we saw more of her, but maybe she’s a bigger character in the sequel. As for the others, yeah, I actually wish they had given Tannis more page time rather than those that had. I’m not saying I didn’t like or care for Teo or Ryuu, or the others, (okay, I am a bit) they didn’t really hold much interest for me.
One of the aspects of the book I really liked was all the crime mentioned in the book. Aina being an assassin, the city basically thriving on crime and forcing the people to take on lives of crime to live and then blaming them for the crime. That was interesting to see because it mirrors real life in a way – people being forced to do what needs to be done in order to survive and then being blamed for that exact thing.
I liked the plot, until it made me very confused. There kept being another plot point behind a trap door, because that’s what it felt like to me – I turn the page and boom, there’s a new area of the plot I didn’t know or didn’t see happening. Sure, a part of that was because I wasn’t paying as much attention as usual, so that’s probably my fault.
The more I write this review the more I get so annoyed because I know I should be into this book and loving it, and honestly, I will probably read the sequel; but this book just made me so frustrated with dragging me along, promising me a good time, and basically, failing to provide that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use
Moderate: Violence and Death
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