A review by jrayereads
The Blood Gift by N.E. Davenport

adventurous challenging medium-paced

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

3.0

 

I usually don’t feel this way, but this should have been a trilogy. The first book is such a solid blend of sci-fi and fantasy and we get so much set up of this world and the political dynamics that Kenna has to navigate as a black woman with secret magic. SO GOOD. But this book tries to do waaaaaaay too much in too short of a time. I desperately wanted a book in between these two to allow time for relationships between Kenna and her team to develop and for Kenna to learn about her heritage and actually take time to learn and grow in her powers. The gods, the magic system, and Kenna’s own abilities were so underdeveloped and that made the entire final battle between her and the big bad feel pretty cheap.

The writing was also pretty hard to get through for me. In the first book Kenna is very irreverent and crass and that was really funny to read and works well for her character, but it was played up to such a cheesy degree in this one. It was pretty painful to constantly be subjected to characters preaching about how badass they were and how much they were going to kill each other, and this bled into Kenna’s inner monologue to the point where I felt like I was constantly reading Marvel one-liners. Some of the dialogue was so painfully cringe. Don’t tell me how badass everyone is through them standing around having a dick measuring contest, SHOW ME. I think Davenport saw the positive reaction to how badass Kenna was in the first book and played that up way too much.

This was a disappointing sequel but I still feel pretty positively about the duology as a whole. I just wanted MORE! More development of the world and the magic, more quiet character moments that make me care about everyone and their relationships. More REED (bc I did love him and the severely underdeveloped romance made me so sad). I will definitely be sat for whatever Davenport does next because I think she has a lot of potential.