Blood Scion

"I liked learning about African culture, had to google some infos. I learned while enjoying a great story. "

"It was a very on and off time reading this book for me. I liked it at moments then hated in it in some others. First off, I love some good African mythology and traditional religions so having this books based off of Yoruba Ifa divination was lovely. As an Igbo girl, it's nice to learn about my neighboring tribe. SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT.<br/><br/>I thoroughly enjoyed how dark and gory this book was. Let's be real. It's a book about colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and war all told through the perspective of a 15-year-old. Its gonna be dark. It needs to be dark for it be accurate and I'm so glad Falaye did not back off when describing these things. In the first act of this book we get themes and lucid descriptions of self-harm, rape, sexual assault, murder, genocide, arson, poverty, etc. In today's world, we may not have scions and Orisha, but these geopolitical situations are real and happening everyday. I believe it is the job of fiction to reveal truths about our world like this. I also appreciated the beginning of the novel when we hear about Sloane's childhood friend and her struggle with self harm. It wasn't pleasant, but I think Falaye did a good job covering the topic and it felt healing to read.<br/><br/>On to the things I didn't like/found confusing. First off, the accents. I read this through an audiobook so I was glad to hear that the speaker had a Nigerian accent for Sloane, what confused me was everyone else's accent. The events of this book all take in a fantasy Yorubaland, so why are some characters British, why are some American, and why do some flip flop on what accent they have depending on the day? This obviously is not a criticism of the book directly, it was just a bit jarring to listen to. Secondly, Sloane as a main character confused me a lot. I know the general idea is have the audience root for the main character especially if they are positioned to be the hero (like in this story) but there were many times where I really disliked Sloane. I mentioned this in one of my updates but she often went through the cycle of (1) moping about her situation being a child soldier, parents dead, having to hide her identity as a scion, (2) being faced with situation in where her morals may be comprised, (3) going through a "will I, won't I" moment, (4) but then ALWAYS choosing the option that comprises her morals even when she doesn't need to. She'll then sulk about how's she becoming the enemy but as a reader, I don't see her change this mentality at all throughout the story. Every time this situation arose I would roll my eyes and go, "yeah Sloane we get it just kill them, and rationalize it later." Thirdly, the romances in this book seemed forced. Sloane has her first love interest in the beginning, whom she is quickly forced to kill. With all the buildup and exposition about this love interest, I expected him to last a bit longer but iirc, he was killed withing 3 chapters of knowing him. It set the tone for how dark this book would be early on but it still was just like, what was the point? Not sure what lesson we learned from his death or how that developed the plot besides just giving more things for Sloane to be (rightfully) sad about. Sloane's final love interest was something that felt REALLY forced by the author, like there just had to be an enemies to lovers subplot. This is a man who took part in her torture and is part of a regime that hunts her people but somehow they both get the hots for each other in two chapters. It just kind of hit me like a bus, but I went with it until we got to the end. Oh the end was utter whiplash regarding this romance. Sloane successfully kills her oppressors and in this cinematic moment of triumph, her so-called love interest stabs her in the back. I was just shook. You have to have read the book to understand what I'm saying but we got DEEP in love with this man, so much so that we call him a different name now, so I was expecting this to be endgame. We got more chemistry and devotion from this relationship than the first love interest Sloane had in the novel (and that guy was her lifelong friend). Which brings me to my point again of why was that storyline even necessary in the first place, but I digress. Overall, the romance in this book did not feel organic and often was force fed to the audience. Lastly, the politics of Nagea I felt were solid until the end where it's revealed that Sloane's father is the Blood Scion and her baba was a Lucis at some point. You mean to tell me that in there entire time of living in her village, no one recognized that her baba was their old oppressor? I understand hiding it from Sloane, but from the whole village?<br/><br/>TL;DR: Good dark themes. Good Yoruba culture. Weird audiobook accents. Main character was a bit annoying. Romance was forced. Some holes in country's politics. I rate this three stars because I liked the idea of this novel but I feel the execution could've been a bit better. I do recommend it, though! Read Blood Scion!"

"I didn’t like the ending"

"a great read that takes you to a fantasy world but still touches on really important issues such as colonization, imperialism, and racism. i could not put this book down once i started"