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A review by bookstarbri
Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Whatttt on earth did I just read? I'm scared. I am in FEAR. I feel like since page 1 of the book, I was descending further and further into darkness. I expected it to be dark, but didn't expect it to get as graphic as it did, especially so early on. See CWs because this book is not for everyone. Though this book is dark, it is a YA, so perhaps not quite as dark as it could've been had it been adult.
However, if you are able to get past all of those, this book is WORTH IT. I have never read anything like it my life. It is a stunning YA military, fantasy novel. Its main character, Sloan, is what's called a Scion, which is basically a being descended from gods who harbors magic. The people in charge, however, despise Scions and hunt them down. So when Sloan lands in the heart of the very people who want to kill her, she has figure out how to survive in such a perilous world, away from her friends and family.
Sloan is a wonderful character. Watching her do everything she has to do to survive was horrific and terrible and such a fascinating character arc. She loses a lot of herself in this book. She does a lot of horrible things. She makes a lot of bad decisions and, worse, she loses a lot of her humanity because of this terrible world. We do a lot of moving in this book and the person she was at the start of its 430ish pages is not at all who she is at the end, yet the core of her remains very much the same. The side characters were good too. I think I wish we could've gotten more from them. There was a lot of Sloan's inner monologue that I wish could've been condensed so we could have her interact more with the other characters. Because of the nature of the book, I pretty much consider all of the characters besides Sloan side characters, since none of them really stood out enough to be a main character along with Sloan.
The plot of this book is amazing. It did get a bit slow in the middle and, again, the inner monologues got to be a bit much and repetitive at times. However, there are a lot of twists and turns and BIG surprises. I guessed the big one at the end a few chapters earlier, but I hadn't guessed many of the other ones throughout. This is one of the darkest YA books I've ever read. But everything that happens happens for a reason and isn't simply to frivolously put the MC through hell. This book is amazing. It is brilliant. The writing is fantastic. I don't know where the sequel will go, but I am both terrified and ecstatic to read it.
Thank you to the author, HarperCollins, and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
However, if you are able to get past all of those, this book is WORTH IT. I have never read anything like it my life. It is a stunning YA military, fantasy novel. Its main character, Sloan, is what's called a Scion, which is basically a being descended from gods who harbors magic. The people in charge, however, despise Scions and hunt them down. So when Sloan lands in the heart of the very people who want to kill her, she has figure out how to survive in such a perilous world, away from her friends and family.
Sloan is a wonderful character. Watching her do everything she has to do to survive was horrific and terrible and such a fascinating character arc. She loses a lot of herself in this book. She does a lot of horrible things. She makes a lot of bad decisions and, worse, she loses a lot of her humanity because of this terrible world. We do a lot of moving in this book and the person she was at the start of its 430ish pages is not at all who she is at the end, yet the core of her remains very much the same. The side characters were good too. I think I wish we could've gotten more from them. There was a lot of Sloan's inner monologue that I wish could've been condensed so we could have her interact more with the other characters. Because of the nature of the book, I pretty much consider all of the characters besides Sloan side characters, since none of them really stood out enough to be a main character along with Sloan.
The plot of this book is amazing. It did get a bit slow in the middle and, again, the inner monologues got to be a bit much and repetitive at times. However, there are a lot of twists and turns and BIG surprises. I guessed the big one at the end a few chapters earlier, but I hadn't guessed many of the other ones throughout. This is one of the darkest YA books I've ever read. But everything that happens happens for a reason and isn't simply to frivolously put the MC through hell. This book is amazing. It is brilliant. The writing is fantastic. I don't know where the sequel will go, but I am both terrified and ecstatic to read it.
Thank you to the author, HarperCollins, and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Blood, Child abuse, Colonisation, Grief, Sexual assault, and War
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Rape, Self harm, and Torture
Minor: Trafficking