A review by fishy27
The Blood Gift by N.E. Davenport

adventurous emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I picked up The Blood Gift immediately after finishing The Blood Trials: I read the first book as an audiobook, and really enjoyed it. I couldn’t wait to get into the second book, which I read as an e-book. I was unfortunately disappointed by this second installment in the series. 

The biggest issue I had here was pacing. Ikenna & the crew complete their primary objective

around 60% of the way through the book.

I understand that she had two primary objectives, but I expected that the latter, taking out the Tribunal, would take up less space on-page. I was wrong. Setting up the book this way made that last portion of the story feel rather laborious: I had already tapped out of the story, yet we were still going, not even close to the end. I don’t know what exactly I would have preferred, but I do know that I didn’t love it as it was. 

Ikenna also really started to irritate me during this book. In the first book, I enjoyed that Davenport was giving us an angry Black woman who took no shit and fucked people up while maintaining a degree of complexity. In this book, I thought that Ikenna’s badassery was blown way out of proportion. She becomes nearly unstoppable and overpowered to the point where it’s not as fun to follow her story anymore. I can appreciate that Davenport wanted to match the fast-paced, snappy story that we had in the first book, but this book felt simultaneously formulaic in its plot points and dull. 

Davenport’s prose is very well, written, and I think she captures Ikenna’s voice perfectly–you can learn so much much about her character through the prose, which speaks to her skills as a writer. It would be negligent to omit this praise despite not loving the execution of the rest of the book. 

Overall, I was a bit disappointed with this book, primarily because of the pacing. Davenport is clearly a skilled writer, but plot structure and management, along with a main character who is a bit too “for the plot” for my liking, unfortunately led me to a lower rating on the second installment than the first.