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A review by freethefrican
Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
There was too much going on and too many POVs fighting for my attention. I would have preferred not to know what almost all of them were doing.
A major problem for me was the role and importance of the magic council. You would think having a magic council meant there were people the magic council was presiding over, that there was a community of magic users who needed their leadership but there was no indication of that. It felt like they were just a group of people who decided to give themselves titles. Hell, the main characters hardly new anybody outside of their family who did magic. So what was the point??
Another question I have is was I meant to root for the magic users? They were portrayed as people who were about to be “unfairly” regulated by the government and unfortunately, I found myself being on the government’s side a lot because almost all instances where magic was used was to seriously harm someone else. Either to physically hurt, take away free will, or even kill. It was very difficult for me to get behind the magic simply because of this.
The characters were prone to being a little excessive in their actions, the absence of adults in charge of the protagonists was LOUD, the murder mystery was boring, and the writer had a tendency to get carried away with descriptions.
In the end, this amount of stuff happening in two weeks was just very ridiculous to me. There’s enough for two well fleshed out books crammed in here, stuff that could have been drawn out over weeks to months.
A major problem for me was the role and importance of the magic council. You would think having a magic council meant there were people the magic council was presiding over, that there was a community of magic users who needed their leadership but there was no indication of that. It felt like they were just a group of people who decided to give themselves titles. Hell, the main characters hardly new anybody outside of their family who did magic. So what was the point??
Another question I have is was I meant to root for the magic users? They were portrayed as people who were about to be “unfairly” regulated by the government and unfortunately, I found myself being on the government’s side a lot because almost all instances where magic was used was to seriously harm someone else. Either to physically hurt, take away free will, or even kill. It was very difficult for me to get behind the magic simply because of this.
The characters were prone to being a little excessive in their actions, the absence of adults in charge of the protagonists was LOUD, the murder mystery was boring, and the writer had a tendency to get carried away with descriptions.
In the end, this amount of stuff happening in two weeks was just very ridiculous to me. There’s enough for two well fleshed out books crammed in here, stuff that could have been drawn out over weeks to months.