Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Children of Virtue and Vengeance

Children of Blood and Bone was such a unique take on magic and the dystopian tropes that we have seen so often in Young Adult, especially in the last 10 years. So with its predecessor doing so well, I thought the latter would live up to what the first book laid the ground work for and build off of it.

But that did not happen.

I tried so many times to like this book but there was one point where I almost DNF’d it because I thought I wouldn’t be able to get through it. I muscled on however and was sadly disappointed by the result.

Children of Vengeance and Virtue flickers between multiple perspectives, like the first book, which I normally do not like but Adeyemi does a great job of making each transition seamless and not jarring.

The story picks right back up where we left off at the end of the first book where Zelie and the others have brought magic back to the world. What ensues in this book is them trying to overthrow the monarchy and the monarchy trying to crush the maji. Now that magic is back, not only are the maji more powerful but royals and other people of power in the monarchy have magic which I thought was very interesting. I liked seeing this new side of magic that even the maji were baffled at. There are battles periodically through out the book, power struggles with Amari and the maji leaders, inner struggles of Zelie as she comes to grips with what happened in the first book and other minor subplots for majority of the novel. The climax happens the last 40 pages or so of the book with a twist ending that made little to no sense.

I know the author wants to make the reader interested in the next book but all the meandering and floundering around of the plot before the main battle, Zelie’s continual and constant despisement for Amari and a few other things just rubbed me the wrong way made me think twice about my rating. I was going to give this 3 stars but thinking back on my reading experience, I really did not enjoy it as much as I would have liked to.

The rich world of the maji is still beautiful and stunning, all the characters are more or less fleshed out and the author does a great job of balancing three perspectives as well as helping us understand and sympathize with even the most twisted of characters. Sadly, the last 40 pages or so of the book finally reaching its climax just could not carry or save the other 364 pages of this book.

Content Warnings

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adventurous dark sad tense fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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