Reviews with content warning for Gore - The Blood Gift

I have so many mixed emotions!!! The Blood Gift is book two in The Blood Gift Duology and boy was it an epic conclusion. Things pick up right where we left off at the end of The Blood Trials with Ikenna and her newly formed squad. Once you’re on the ride, you don’t get off until the very end. Grievances are sorted out, evils are slain, and justice is finally served, but for all the action you can feel that this was intended to be more than a duology. Davenport does an amazing job at tying up the story while keeping you on the edge of your seat, but we miss out on seeing a lot of character development. With there being a new team and budding romance there just wasn’t room for us to really see how deeply those relationships formed which is what I desperately craved for Ikenna. Overall I loved the story and appreciate how the author left hints for more to come from these characters.

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tinyjude's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Very solid sequel. I liked the growth in the interpersonal relationships and the vulnerable moments between the characters. I feel elated that I was so right about Caiman and Greyson asdfghjkl

Some plots didn't get resolved or weren't used at all after being important in the first half of the book. The writing was also repetitive at a lot of points, with the metaphors becoming exhausting and some constant phrasing interrupting the reading flow. At some points it resembled more a typical chosen-one narrative seen in young adult stories, than a new adult one but that's okay as I enjoyed the rage and violence and vindication we got. Not a biggest fan of the chosen-one narratives and unbreakable plot armor, but it was a fun read and for that I might check more from this author in the future.

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nerdy_book_mom's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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onthesamepage's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

So, the good news is, compared to the first book, Ikenna frustrated me a lot less. The bad news is, this left space in my head to start noticing a lot of things about the writing, and none of it made me very happy.

Plot-wise, this is a complete departure from book one, which makes sense considering where we left off. There's no mystery left. Ikenna and her team are hellbent on getting rid of the corruption within Mareen. Before they can do that, they need to take care of the Blood Emperor, who is once more terrorizing the planet. It's a very straightforward plot of "how are we going to defeat the bad guys", but it's fairly fast-paced and overall entertaining enough. And I mostly liked the characters. But a lot of this doesn't feel like it's the end of a series. This is reinforced by the end of the book, which basically implies there's a whole new story waiting to happen. Things are set up by the author that never get any payoff. For example, the book starts off with Ikenna trying to broker an alliance with someone on the wrong side of the law. She demands soldiers and weapons, only she doesn't really do much with either of them afterwards, or with the alliance in general. There's maybe one or two off-hand mentions, and that's it, which makes me wonder why the author bothered to include it at all. It also leans a lot more fantasy than science fiction compared to The Blood Trials.

Other than all the major plot conveniences that riddle this story, I have two major criticisms.

The first has to do with Ikenna. Look, I get that she was always going to be special as our main character. She has the Blood Gift and all of that. But her level of special receives like three upgrades over the course of this book, and I guess it's not something I expect to see if we're talking about an adult fantasy. This much Chosen One-ness is something I see more often within YA, and it irked me. I also had trouble buying into her supposed development. One of my biggest issues with the first book was how little she thought things through, and how she kept deciding that people were murderers based on very flimsy "evidence". Only now I'm supposed to believe that she has become some sort of strategic mastermind.

But I could've ignored that, because I didn't have very high expectations for her anyway. However, I couldn't ignore all the issues I had with the writing.

The author relies very, very heavily on similes/comparisons, whether they're necessary or not. Ikenna can never just be angry, she has to be angry like a thousand raging suns. Something can't just hurt, it hurts like fifty daggers stabbing into her stomach one after the other, the last one dragging her intestines out of her, so a final blade can twist into them until twenty gallons of blood come pouring out. Here are a few examples so you can get a sense of what to expect:

Conversely, the Blood Emperor allows his savagery, the utter barbarism that comprises him, to ooze from his skin like an open sore he doesn’t bother to bandage. It washes over him and coats him like an exoskeleton he clings to and dons as an additional weapon to spread fear and terrorize all who have the misfortune of stumbling into his orbit.

His cheekbones and jawline are pronounced, sharp as the Khanaian blade pressed against my hip and concealed beneath the black tactical pants and shirt Ajani first captured me in.

It’s so glacial it feels like icicles punch through my insides while my heart and blood and muscle and tissue and sinew freeze over.

I can't confirm this, but I wouldn't be surprised if every page had at least one sentence similar to these.

The author also really likes to use sentences with extra full stops/periods:

I grip the edge of the seat. “Be. More. Succinct. Immediately.”

Seriously, nobody talks like that.

Then there are sentences that are weird/nonsensical:

“What do you have for us?” Reed asks, his low, steady tone exuding all I could want from a voice.

This may sound like nitpicking, but I wouldn't have noticed all of this if it wasn't all over the book. I just don't think the writing is very good in general, and if you're someone who tends to see patterns and stylistic choices within the writing, you might be bothered.

(All quotes are from an ARC of the book and may not match with the published version. They are only included as an indication of the writing style.)

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bookishmikay's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

shannnne_reads_words's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

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