A review by thenovelmaura
Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao

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

2.5

I was expecting this book to be right up my alley, given that it's a magical retelling of Anastasia Nikolayevna's story (the last duchess of Russia) written by an Asian author. I was aware of the prior controversy surrounding this book and while I'm all for sensitivity readers and calling out racist representation when we see it, I didn't think the initial claims were substantiated. When Zhao pushed the release date out and reworked the draft, I was excited to read it (and here I am 4 years after the release).

Unfortunately, this book was a huge letdown simply because it was such a generic fantasy that I was hardly motivated to finish it. There wasn't anything specifically wrong with it, but I found the plot to be painfully predictable as someone who reads a lot of fantasy. The characters so perfectly fit into stereotypes that I knew who would live, who would die, how certain conflicts would be resolved, etc. From reading other reviews of this book, Zhao wanted to shed light upon the issue of human trafficking, but I didn't get any of that from a generic "magical people are enslaved and oppressed" storyline that is already rampant in fantasy stories. It's not bad, per se, but I have no desire to read the 2nd book. It's honestly kind of funny to me that this book was so mired in controversy when it's otherwise so entirely forgettable.
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