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dan_kan 's review for:
Blood Heir
by Amélie Wen Zhao
I think the major problem with this book was that it had the potential for greatness. There are some books which are objectively bad but subjectively a good time. This book, on the other hand, was in reach of objectively good but, unfortunately, fell short of the mark.
One of the main issues is that everything about the characters is revealed too early. We get their whole backstory a couple of pages in. It completely slows down the pacing of the book and ruins the mystery. It might be a cliche that mysteries are revealed slowly in books, but it's a cliche for a reason. Because it works.
The second was Ana. Damn, that girl was dumb. It's all I could think about the whole time. She was so, so dumb. What was weird is that she was initially presented as having her shit together, and then every single damn thing she did after just showed what a moron she was. Use magic in the middle of a market and expose yourself and the young girl you are with? Sure, why not? Try and attack a bunch of people when you're vastly outnumbered, surrounded by archers who shoot to kill with poison that stops your powers? Seems like a good idea to Ana. Randomly kill someone who might have important information, when you could have just, I don't know, overpowered them and got that information? Yes, of course, why not? Every choice she made was moronic. No matter how many times she was told to use her fucking brain, which was often, she never developed more cognitive abilities than a pea. I'm sure people this rash and impulsive do exist in real life, but I'm sure there's not a lot of them. Especially as such a personality type doesn't correspond with the rest of her character.
Also, at the start of the story, it's established that Ana knows that people with Affinities are treated badly. She's been living for 11 months on her own in this world. She was locked in a dungeon as a child and forced to drink poison because of her affinity. Yet, the rest of the story is Ana acting like it's brand new information that Affinites are treated badly. She keeps having these revelations about how badly they are treated, but she ...already knows? Then she has the same moral dilemmas over and over again. Seriously, the exact same ones? Where is the character progression? The fact she kept having the exact same revelations over and over again drove me insane.
Then it seems completely astounding to her that Morganya is doing what she’s doing to stop Affinites suffering oppression, even though the reader figures this in about 2 seconds. Not once does she grapple with the fact that maybe her father was a bad person, who had to die to save the Affinites, despite the fact that he, I don’t know, TORTURED HER AND PUT HER IN A DUNGEON. And that she spends all book realising that her father allowed the oppression of the people she keeps insisting she’s going to save.
Equally, her powers are set up in chapter 1 as epic. She murders 5 guards while poisoned! But the rest of the book she gets her ass kicked for no discernable reason. She just throws people into walls. She's a blood witch! It was so annoying how so much of the set up of the story was walked back.
Also, she spends like the entire book letting people just creep up behind her (despite the fact she’s a BLOOD WITCH) and pass her poison, which she seems to voluntarily guzzle like it’s fucking water or something. Ana was massively TSTL.
On a similar note, the other main character, Ramson Quicktongue is meant to be some criminal mastermind. He only seemed like the genius because of how thick Ana was. He never seemed smart. He never seemed smart enough to run a drug gang. He wasn't ruthless enough. We kept being told he was bad, terrifying, scary, but he never did anything worthy of those adjectives. He definitely wasn't some master criminal.
He started to like Anna for no identifying reason. The girl was a massive fuck up! He also kept going on about what a good person she was despite the fact she murders a bunch of people every couple of chapters.
The plot was such a mess. The most stupid drawn out fights, where everyone is missed with a knife by an inch. People virtually wrestling on the floor. Ana voluntarily guzzling poison. Also, plot holes. How was Linn able to ride to the castle as an Affinite just fine, but Ana was caught immediately. (Ofc with 0 back up plan.)
The premise of the book was good, the idea was good, it was just executed badly. The most significant being how unbearable the main character was.
Spoiler
One of the main issues is that everything about the characters is revealed too early. We get their whole backstory a couple of pages in. It completely slows down the pacing of the book and ruins the mystery. It might be a cliche that mysteries are revealed slowly in books, but it's a cliche for a reason. Because it works.
The second was Ana. Damn, that girl was dumb. It's all I could think about the whole time. She was so, so dumb. What was weird is that she was initially presented as having her shit together, and then every single damn thing she did after just showed what a moron she was. Use magic in the middle of a market and expose yourself and the young girl you are with? Sure, why not? Try and attack a bunch of people when you're vastly outnumbered, surrounded by archers who shoot to kill with poison that stops your powers? Seems like a good idea to Ana. Randomly kill someone who might have important information, when you could have just, I don't know, overpowered them and got that information? Yes, of course, why not? Every choice she made was moronic. No matter how many times she was told to use her fucking brain, which was often, she never developed more cognitive abilities than a pea. I'm sure people this rash and impulsive do exist in real life, but I'm sure there's not a lot of them. Especially as such a personality type doesn't correspond with the rest of her character.
Also, at the start of the story, it's established that Ana knows that people with Affinities are treated badly. She's been living for 11 months on her own in this world. She was locked in a dungeon as a child and forced to drink poison because of her affinity. Yet, the rest of the story is Ana acting like it's brand new information that Affinites are treated badly. She keeps having these revelations about how badly they are treated, but she ...already knows? Then she has the same moral dilemmas over and over again. Seriously, the exact same ones? Where is the character progression? The fact she kept having the exact same revelations over and over again drove me insane.
Then it seems completely astounding to her that Morganya is doing what she’s doing to stop Affinites suffering oppression, even though the reader figures this in about 2 seconds. Not once does she grapple with the fact that maybe her father was a bad person, who had to die to save the Affinites, despite the fact that he, I don’t know, TORTURED HER AND PUT HER IN A DUNGEON. And that she spends all book realising that her father allowed the oppression of the people she keeps insisting she’s going to save.
Equally, her powers are set up in chapter 1 as epic. She murders 5 guards while poisoned! But the rest of the book she gets her ass kicked for no discernable reason. She just throws people into walls. She's a blood witch! It was so annoying how so much of the set up of the story was walked back.
Also, she spends like the entire book letting people just creep up behind her (despite the fact she’s a BLOOD WITCH) and pass her poison, which she seems to voluntarily guzzle like it’s fucking water or something. Ana was massively TSTL.
On a similar note, the other main character, Ramson Quicktongue is meant to be some criminal mastermind. He only seemed like the genius because of how thick Ana was. He never seemed smart. He never seemed smart enough to run a drug gang. He wasn't ruthless enough. We kept being told he was bad, terrifying, scary, but he never did anything worthy of those adjectives. He definitely wasn't some master criminal.
He started to like Anna for no identifying reason. The girl was a massive fuck up! He also kept going on about what a good person she was despite the fact she murders a bunch of people every couple of chapters.
The plot was such a mess. The most stupid drawn out fights, where everyone is missed with a knife by an inch. People virtually wrestling on the floor. Ana voluntarily guzzling poison. Also, plot holes. How was Linn able to ride to the castle as an Affinite just fine, but Ana was caught immediately. (Ofc with 0 back up plan.)
The premise of the book was good, the idea was good, it was just executed badly. The most significant being how unbearable the main character was.