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Reviews tagging 'Death'

Born of Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

34 reviews

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

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adventurous 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: No

The world that Jennifer L. Armentrout has created in the FAF and FBAA series is so intriguing and beautifully crafted. I absolutely loved to be back with Sera and Nyktos. 

Of the two series, I am definitely more partial to FAF and I felt like this was a fantastic conclusion to the series overall. This one did take me a while to get through however. The book picks up immediately after the last book and I felt there was still so much unnecessary repetition. A lot could have been edited out without it impacting the story whatsoever. But once I got over those initial hurdles, I was hooked and couldn’t put this down. 

JLA is an extraordinary storyteller, however, her writing style sometimes doesn’t flow. Oftentimes certain phrases are used that feel more modern/trendy that pulled me out of the story a bit. Phrases that don’t feel rooted in the world that has been built. And, as with FBAA, we again lose a bit of Nyktos to the lust and Sera championing that goes on. While not as bad as FBAA, Nykotos still maintained more of his own personality, he still felt heavily engulfed in his lust for Sera and whatever came with that. She couldn’t even hug her father-like friend without him growling. While I am all for a MMC growling “she’s mine” to some background douche or the villain, the constant posturing against your own friends and family is annoying. I also had a bit of an issue with the pacing of the story. Overall, it felt a bit slow and it wasn’t until I was about 50-60% through before I was finally into it. Too much unnecessary dialogue/scenes and the most important parts of the plot seemed to be jammed into the last 30% of the book. The final showdown with Kolis, unfortunately, was rushed. 

I appreciated how JLA handled Sera’s trauma and healing journey from her SA and Nyktos’ gentleness as he helped her through it. 

I enjoyed the scheming, strategizing and political aspects. I absolutely LOVED the karma that was doled out. Nektas, Reaver and Jadis were, again, my standout favourites. I need a series just about the drakken. There were moments that made me laugh, cry and moments that had me on the edge of my seat. I loved learning more about the prophecy and puzzling it out alongside Sera. This series did a fantastic job weaving together the events of FAF and FBAA and I’m so excited to grab the next FBAA book to see how everything ties off. 

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful 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: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional sad 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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous emotional 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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-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: Complicated

Sera and Ash’s story comes to an end in their timeline, as this series and FBAA are set to intertwine in the next book. Nyktos remains my favorite, but Attes is a close second. 

Sera and Ash are reunited and Sera has a lot of PTSD from her time with Kolis, but she’s in denial and fails to address it for most of the story, which has serious implications. Sera gets reunions with her Lasania family while also building her chosen family with Nyktos and friends in Illesium. I loved both for her.

Nyktos shows care and starts to allow others to see him happy and as Ash, which made me happy as both he and Sera acknowledge the chosen family they built. 

Hollander returns and makes a few brief appearances that surprise and inform. 

While a lot happens, this book ends
just as Kolis is entombed. Without the birth of the twins. The last chapter is from the POV of the ancients which both excites and scares me as we await the POBAB release. We definitely get more information and what I hope is the final official prophesy, but I have new questions too.

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adventurous dark emotional funny reflective 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

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Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

The politics of this book is bonkers to me. I'm supposed to believe that the good guys are the ones who declare that there needs to be a single-party system and anyone who won't swear allegiance to them they'll murder and then install one of their lackeys on the seat of government for each sub-country? What kind of fascist USSR bullshit is this? And after Sera commits literal atrocities the lesson she takes away from it is, I should never have tried to be a better person, I should have leaned all the way into being a murderous unhinged monster from the start?? Wtf? Yeah, Kolis is worse, but that's not saying much. A jar of expired mayonnaise would make a better ruler than Kolis—it doesn't mean that Sera and Nyktos are actually good. This book made me deeply dislike Sera, which is a shame, because I had been enjoying Sera/Ash more than Poppy/Cas. It was also deeply unpleasant to read about her dealing with her trauma, I think even more so than reading the actual trauma occuring in the last book. Btw, why'd you have to retcon her abuse to include fingering now Jennifer?? Just to twist the knife? It would have made a better point about her assault not being "nothing" if you didn't include touching genitals but showed that this is assault regardless. I was also stressed out the whole time about the effect Sera's PTSD/depression would be having on her babies, and pissed off that once she learned she was pregnant she refused to stop fighting to protect them. I am getting so tired of "badass" female characters who are only badass because they're aggressive, violent, and reckless. I want a female character to be badass because she is smart, calculating, and controlled! Show me the power in restraint! Anyway, Attes and Holland are wonderful and nearly everyone else is annoying to me at this point. I'm going to stick with the series because I've come this far, but man am I pissed at how much potential this series had and how far it went off the rails.

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