A review by jamesflint
The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan

2.0

There is no one but the One. And so the One commands.

Rep: Middle Eastern inspired characters and setting

I picked this book up in the bookshop probably about 6 months back, mostly based on the fact that the cover is absolutely fricking gorgeous. Aaaaand it disappointed. (Cue my mum asking why I read such bad books. It's not my fault! I'm susceptible to a pretty cover, so what?)

So why did it disappoint? Primarily, the writing.

Let me take a step back for a second. The premise and the plot in this have a lot of potential, as does the main romance (although I'm so goddamn tired of beautiful protagonists who have men falling at their feet when it adds nothing to the plot). Yes, it's a fairly heavy-handed comparison to the Taliban (Talisman/Taliban? Get it?), but that's not the problem. The problem is the execution.

Ultimately, the writing is dull and even action scenes just kind of plod along. It's descriptive, maybe venturing into purple prose territory at times, but there's never a change in pacing between non-action and action scenes. Hence, the dullness. I also really didn't like some of the stylistic choices the author made.

Like finishing every* chapter like this.
With three short sentences.
Each as their own paragraph.

(* every, or rather, enough that I noticed and got annoyed)

Because it just made the writing seem choppy and disrupted. So the scenes felt choppy and disrupted too and seemed to lack a coherent flow (not entirely I'll admit, but enough). As well as this, some scenes happened without any apparent build-up. So, because the writing felt disjointed, the plot also felt disjointed and I couldn't get into it. It also seemed to me that there was a bit of a disconnect between certain scenes and the worldbuilding. I don't know why, but sometimes it felt like a particular scene was happening disconnected of the world it was supposed to be happening in (if that makes any sense). Maybe that was partly the writing style, maybe it was a product of me skimreading (although it happened in the second chapter, at a point where I wasn't actually yet skimming, so), I don't know. But it didn't help my enjoyment (or lack of) of the book.

In addition, I only liked one character of the whole cast (Wafa) and, while I didn't actively dislike any of the rest, that's not enough for me to go on. I just didn't really care about the rest. There was a second chance romance relationship full of potential, and it just ended up being as dull as the rest of the book. I didn't care about the angst in it, or the individual characters, so I sure as hell wasn't going to be able to care about the relationship itself.

One good thing, though. The end. Although I kind of called one of the reveals, there were some other really good ones that happened. And if I hadn't been so completely bored by the previous 400+ pages, then maybe that'd have tempted me to consider book two. But as it was, it did nothing.

So, in the end, I leave this note to self: if you're going to pick a book based on its cover, maybe read some of it first.