A review by sreddous
The Blood of Faeries by Dan Rice

adventurous funny tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is a super fun, action-packed, witty, well-paced monster story.

This book starts off FAST with a ton of details, so I’d say in general it’s probably smart to read the first book before this one to ‘not be too surprised by the rules of the world thrown at you early’, but that goes without saying. For those of us who read this one first, it didn’t take too long to get accustomed to all the fantasy and monster aspects, so it’s not too confusing. 

What makes this book SO immersive is the overall tone of the narration. The ‘voice’ here is cute! I like the way this POV character describes things to us. I definitely ‘feel’ this character and the narration is really well-done. As a nitpicky thing, maybe sometimes the dialogue scenes and back-and-forth tend to go on a liiiittle long – it’s good to see these characters interacting, but it feels a little like too much sometimes especially in the earlier parts of the book. But, even then, the dialogue is still really good. I like the little vocal tics various characters have, including Ace saying “Chill, chill. Just my phone” around page 150. There are some darn cute quotations: “Some people are never satisfied, Allison. Don’t be some people.” made me laugh out loud. This book is funny!! Immersive stuff!

The relationships feel complex and well-built-out too. I like the complicated relationship with the mom character, the mom is really interesting. Their conversations are tense and scary in a good way. I also liked the friendship with Haji where him being an “ex” doesn’t mean he’s automatically a villain, and I liked the friendship with Leslie in the beginning. Without spoiling too much, even though Leslie doesn’t show up much in the second half of the book, it’s a cool twist to see this “popular girl” standing up for put-upon kids early on at least.

And then, of course, we’ve got the action scenes. The action and monster scenes are scary and gross in very good ways. I can follow all the moves with nasty saliva and blood and fighting and can picture all these details and descriptions easily. The pacing is really good here too – it’s easy to see how Allison is pushed to her breaking point; there’s enough “time” for all these little things to build up, which makes the action really satisfying, and when people pick fights and respond with violence it feels ‘earned.’ Still, even with a ton of violence, the “we should choose peace when we can, killing is pretty terrible actually” messages don’t feel forced, and I think the different characters process their decisions in complex ways in the climax and ending of the story.

Overall, this is a ton of fun. Definitely recommend for anyone looking for a high-energy, well-detailed monster story.

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