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A review by roxy_b_readin
From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
2.5
From Blood and Ash…the book where…nothing happens…(and where ellipses and stutters are insufferably overused).
I had high hopes going into this one as it’s so popular and it just really let me down.
This book felt like more of a prequel for the rest of the series. I keep waiting for something to happen and it just DIDN’T. The content in this book would have been better suited to a novella. It was slow and repetitive and certainly did not need to be a nearly 700 page book.
I saw practically every single “plot twist” coming from MORE than a mile away. I was sure I had to be mistaken because it was just so glaringly obvious, but lo and behold I was correct. It just made the protagonist seems dense and oblivious.
There’s a big difference between foreshadowing and subtly planting small seeds of information throughout the book and just completely revealing an incredibly valuable piece of information and then just brushing over it in the hopes that the reader wouldn’t catch it and connect the dots. I actually found myself rolling my eyes at how obvious the “hints” were.
For example:
- when Poppy went to the Red Pearl and spoke with the descender who conveniently lead her to Hawke’s room right after the topic of the Dark One was introduced
- Poppy mentioning early on that one of her greatest fears is being betrayed. Obviously she’s going to be betrayed so naturally I’m gonna keep my eyes open as for who it will be - what better person to betray her than her ~mysterious~ love interest
- the Duke being killed with the cane he used to beat Poppy with after she and Vikter discussed the subject of the Duke’s “lessons” in a public setting where someone could have easily overheard. We know Hawke was angry when he suspected that the duke was abusing her. His whereabouts were unknown when the murder took place and he conveniently showed up right before the body was found. Actually he was pretty much MIA when anything significant went down and just showed up again with impeccable timing.
- the fact that Poppy FULLY acknowledges that Hawke can somehow see in the dark, is incredibly fast, and randomly has super sharp teeth and she just decides to ignore it so she can make out with him.
- Hawke seeming nervous after finding out about Poppy’s gift and specifically asking if she could feel things like “guilt”
- Hawke saying that he “lost his brother”, but he isn’t dead and we know that the dark one also happens to have a brother that people don’t seem to know exists.
- the fact that he called her Princess repeatedly when the Dark One is literally the Prince.
I could go on but honestly i’m getting mad at how either the author and editors didn’t even try to hide it, thought that their audience would be too dumb to put 2 and 2 together; or worst of all, genuinely thought that they did a good job of hiding this so-called plot twist.
The world building was also sloppy. I found myself confused the majority of the time about the “history”, why certain characters were important, what certain rituals were, etc. I still don’t really understand why the maiden is important??? The names of the creatures and places also just felt weird and juvenile. This book read like a YA despite that randomly detailed gore during fight scenes and the tame “spice” (I was also promised that this book was spicy and feel lied to).
I’m going to continue with the series because I already own the next two books and just hope that the story picks up now that the foundation has been heavily established, but I’m not feelin optimistic here, guys. I really want to like this series :(
I had high hopes going into this one as it’s so popular and it just really let me down.
This book felt like more of a prequel for the rest of the series. I keep waiting for something to happen and it just DIDN’T. The content in this book would have been better suited to a novella. It was slow and repetitive and certainly did not need to be a nearly 700 page book.
I saw practically every single “plot twist” coming from MORE than a mile away. I was sure I had to be mistaken because it was just so glaringly obvious, but lo and behold I was correct. It just made the protagonist seems dense and oblivious.
There’s a big difference between foreshadowing and subtly planting small seeds of information throughout the book and just completely revealing an incredibly valuable piece of information and then just brushing over it in the hopes that the reader wouldn’t catch it and connect the dots. I actually found myself rolling my eyes at how obvious the “hints” were.
For example:
- when Poppy went to the Red Pearl and spoke with the descender who conveniently lead her to Hawke’s room right after the topic of the Dark One was introduced
- Poppy mentioning early on that one of her greatest fears is being betrayed. Obviously she’s going to be betrayed so naturally I’m gonna keep my eyes open as for who it will be - what better person to betray her than her ~mysterious~ love interest
- the Duke being killed with the cane he used to beat Poppy with after she and Vikter discussed the subject of the Duke’s “lessons” in a public setting where someone could have easily overheard. We know Hawke was angry when he suspected that the duke was abusing her. His whereabouts were unknown when the murder took place and he conveniently showed up right before the body was found. Actually he was pretty much MIA when anything significant went down and just showed up again with impeccable timing.
- the fact that Poppy FULLY acknowledges that Hawke can somehow see in the dark, is incredibly fast, and randomly has super sharp teeth and she just decides to ignore it so she can make out with him.
- Hawke seeming nervous after finding out about Poppy’s gift and specifically asking if she could feel things like “guilt”
- Hawke saying that he “lost his brother”, but he isn’t dead and we know that the dark one also happens to have a brother that people don’t seem to know exists.
- the fact that he called her Princess repeatedly when the Dark One is literally the Prince.
I could go on but honestly i’m getting mad at how either the author and editors didn’t even try to hide it, thought that their audience would be too dumb to put 2 and 2 together; or worst of all, genuinely thought that they did a good job of hiding this so-called plot twist.
The world building was also sloppy. I found myself confused the majority of the time about the “history”, why certain characters were important, what certain rituals were, etc. I still don’t really understand why the maiden is important??? The names of the creatures and places also just felt weird and juvenile. This book read like a YA despite that randomly detailed gore during fight scenes and the tame “spice” (I was also promised that this book was spicy and feel lied to).
I’m going to continue with the series because I already own the next two books and just hope that the story picks up now that the foundation has been heavily established, but I’m not feelin optimistic here, guys. I really want to like this series :(