A review by bookrecsplease
Sun of Blood and Ruin by Mariely Lares

2.5

2.5⭐️

I wanted more background and purpose for La Pantera and all the other groups besides the Spanish earlier on in the book. I had a hard time understanding her specific goals and reasoning for making a lot of decisions because she was just vaguely a vigilante. 

So much of the book was cool ideas that just weren’t executed in a very exciting way. Some examples that include minor details of the book that I wouldn’t necessarily consider spoilers but if you want to go into the book fully blind don’t read:

• I was so excited to see Leonora in jaguar form and to be in the head of her animal form to see what that was like. Then I was majorly let down when the shift happened, and the narration explained about feeling feral and not being able to resist animal instincts, etc. while the inner monologue never changed. That was a huge missed opportunity in my opinion, because it would have been really fun and cool to read an inner dialogue of the ferocity and instincts and not a lot of humanity instead of being told that’s what’s happening. 
• In nearly all action scenes, there was only vague language used and there was super unclear blocking, so I never had a good picture in my mind of how everything was going down. Additionally, during fight scenes there were often jumps ahead in time that took out all tension and excitement. 
• Leonora’s convictions were almost purely externally sourced, which makes her a difficult protagonist to believe in. 
• The jaguar transformation was the coolest idea, but I truly didn’t understand why Leonora tried not to use it and what the oath of sorcerers was, etc. It just wasn’t fleshed out. 
• Leonora’s decisions all feel kind of impulsive and uninteresting because she doesn’t consider what she’ll do after the decision or what the consequences will be. Again, that adds to the book’s sense of directionlessness and limits the intensity/worldbuilding when the protagonist plans nothing but one move ahead.