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inkandplasma 's review for:
The Damned
by Renée Ahdieh
Cawpile rated May 2022:
Character - 6
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 7
Plot - 5
Intrigue - 6
Logic - 5
Enjoyment - 6
Rating: 5.86 / 3 stars
On the reread this seriously suffers from second book energy, the whole thing felt like we were crawling towards the next book, rather than a whole story in its own right. Please don't let book 3 be like that.
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Full review: https://inkandplasma.wordpress.com/2020/07/16/the-damned-by-renee-ahdieh-the-beautiful-2-review/
Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for the review copy of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
Trigger Warnings: blood and murder (vampires y’all), gaslighting and memory fuckery, the consent issues inherent in vampires glamouring their victims.
I honestly love Renee Ahdieh’s writing style. I just love it. In the first 60 pages alone I marked at least ten lines as potential quotes because every line is beautiful and I wanted to remember all of them. I thought it was a little weird that Bastien’s chapters were in first person while the rest of the characters were in third person, but Bastien’s chapters did give me some of my favourite quotes so I’m not complaining too much. I found this book to be a little more simple than The Beautiful, which was much more flowery language. I didn’t mind that though, as I was engaged with the plot and this didn’t have nearly as much ‘second book syndrome’ as I was worried about! In places I was a little confused about the nonchalant way that information was shown – at one point I had to go back to my The Beautiful summary because I thought a plot twist was something I was already meant to know, it was delivered so casually.
I loved Bastien in the first book, but in The Damned? He might be the only fictional man worth respecting. I won’t go into too much detail, because I don’t want to spoil anything, but considering the time setting, Bastien is excellent. He insists on so much personal agency for Celine, giving her a choice in everything that they do and I just love to see it. I love historical fiction, but not when The Man decides everything. Bastien wouldn’t do that to her. Even the love triangle wasn’t that bad – I usually hate them – because the logic behind it tracked and it was clearly based in the society of the time.
In my review of The Beautiful I said that I wanted more vampire stuff in The Damned, and I definitely got that. Seeing a character go through the newborn vampire process was really fun, and definitely had the same energy of the first book. I loved the fae aspects that were added in and how the vampire and fae history was meshed in, different from a lot of vampire books I’ve read. I didn’t realise this was a four part series (because I’m an idiot) and when I got to the 75% mark, I suddenly had the sense of impending doom that this series wasn’t going to be wrapped up in this book. As it is, I can’t wait for the rest of the series, as the end of The Damned kicked things off hard.
Character - 6
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 7
Plot - 5
Intrigue - 6
Logic - 5
Enjoyment - 6
Rating: 5.86 / 3 stars
On the reread this seriously suffers from second book energy, the whole thing felt like we were crawling towards the next book, rather than a whole story in its own right. Please don't let book 3 be like that.
---
Full review: https://inkandplasma.wordpress.com/2020/07/16/the-damned-by-renee-ahdieh-the-beautiful-2-review/
Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for the review copy of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
Trigger Warnings: blood and murder (vampires y’all), gaslighting and memory fuckery, the consent issues inherent in vampires glamouring their victims.
I honestly love Renee Ahdieh’s writing style. I just love it. In the first 60 pages alone I marked at least ten lines as potential quotes because every line is beautiful and I wanted to remember all of them. I thought it was a little weird that Bastien’s chapters were in first person while the rest of the characters were in third person, but Bastien’s chapters did give me some of my favourite quotes so I’m not complaining too much. I found this book to be a little more simple than The Beautiful, which was much more flowery language. I didn’t mind that though, as I was engaged with the plot and this didn’t have nearly as much ‘second book syndrome’ as I was worried about! In places I was a little confused about the nonchalant way that information was shown – at one point I had to go back to my The Beautiful summary because I thought a plot twist was something I was already meant to know, it was delivered so casually.
I loved Bastien in the first book, but in The Damned? He might be the only fictional man worth respecting. I won’t go into too much detail, because I don’t want to spoil anything, but considering the time setting, Bastien is excellent. He insists on so much personal agency for Celine, giving her a choice in everything that they do and I just love to see it. I love historical fiction, but not when The Man decides everything. Bastien wouldn’t do that to her. Even the love triangle wasn’t that bad – I usually hate them – because the logic behind it tracked and it was clearly based in the society of the time.
In my review of The Beautiful I said that I wanted more vampire stuff in The Damned, and I definitely got that. Seeing a character go through the newborn vampire process was really fun, and definitely had the same energy of the first book. I loved the fae aspects that were added in and how the vampire and fae history was meshed in, different from a lot of vampire books I’ve read. I didn’t realise this was a four part series (because I’m an idiot) and when I got to the 75% mark, I suddenly had the sense of impending doom that this series wasn’t going to be wrapped up in this book. As it is, I can’t wait for the rest of the series, as the end of The Damned kicked things off hard.