A review by daiinty
Blade Breaker by Victoria Aveyard

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

“Maybe we belong to each other, we who belong nowhere.” — Victoria Aveyard

i was surprised at how much more i like this book than the first one. usually sequels, especially in a planned trilogy, suffer from “second book syndrome” but this felt like there was more substance with this book and i found myself less confused by the world building than i was with realm breaker. i think that is partially to do with the significant amount of political and war planning that went into this book. i felt like a lot was cleared up. now that i felt like im more aquatinted with these characters i feel so much more connected to them. i loved seeing sorasa and dom’s character growth, and the scene with the assassins was badass. aveyard also writes such compelling villain characters with erida and taristan, i find their POVs to be fascinating. the ending made me cry, and it takes a lot for a book to bring me to tears. this is the epic adventure book i was looking for in the first book.

my biggest question is why is this considered YA? i feel that aveyards writing and world building in this series is much more advanced. is it because one of the characters is 17? i would argue there isn’t necessarily a single MC because many of them get an equal amount of POVs. i just feel like women authors often get lumped into YA when they really have no reason to be unless they fill it with smut and then have to be placed in adult. i feel like this deserves to be an adult fantasy.