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A review by iam
Blood Red by Cordelia Kingsbridge
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The best thing about this book is definitely the amazing writing. It keeps you engaged and makes many of the things happening believeable, even if they really really aren't.
This is the only book by this author I haven't reread multiple times, and this first reread made me remember why I consider this my least favourite book by her.
It's definitely not a bad book. I enjoyed reading it for the most part. But it also lacks... something? The multiple threads of the plot are not as tightly woven together as most of Kingsbridge's other works, with some fraying and forgotten threads along the way.
This also sort of felt like a fanfic. As a lover of fanfic, I'm not holding it against Blood Red, it just jumped out at me.
For one, there is A LOT of sex. I'm pretty sure half of the pages involve something sexual. Again, that's not bad, just noticeable.
Then there's the plot:
Aedan is a so-called whoreslave at a fighting arena, meaning he has to "service" the gladiators who fight there. Aedan has the gift of magic, which he keeps hidden and only knows how to use to heal himself. One day a new fighter appears: he not only treats Aedan nicely, but he also turns out to be a beastman - a shifter. When other shifters break into the arena to free their packmember, Aedan goes with them, and suddenly a world full of freedom, fears, magic and dangers opens before him.
The sexual slavery thematic is a big one in this book. Aedan is an orphan who was sold to a brothel as a teen and evenually ended up at the arena, and (sexual) slavery is all he's known his entire life. His experiences and trauma colour his behavious and thought patterns throughout the entire book, long after he becomes a "free man."
In contex with this are several graphic rape scenes, and also scenes with extremely questionable consent - as a reader I couldn't always tell if Aedan genuinely wanted the sex or if he only told himself he wanted it as a means of survival.
Several of these scenes are questioned both by Aedan himself and by his partner(s), but not all of them, and it kept bothering me as the romance subplot began to develop and as Aedan argued for his own will - it all sounded good on paper, but was that really the truth?
I was also a bit disturbed not only by how casual many of the rape scenes were, but also by how casually much of the brutal violence was handled. It made sense given Aedan's history of sexual slavery and someone who regularly watched people beating each other to death in the arena, but it was unsettling to read at times, especially with how little these horrible things are reflected by Aedan.
The plot still consistently kept me hooked. There was always something interesting happening and I enjoyed reading about the shifter culture and about Aedan learning his magic.
There were a few open questions at the end and some things that went unexplained or unexplored which bothered me a little, but this is an online, free-to-read and unedited work of otherwise incredibly quality, so I do not hold that against it.
Aedan was an interesting character to read about, complex and intelligent, but also a very unreliable narrator.
Content warnings include: repeated graphic rape and violence, (sexual) slavery, mentions of magical mpreg
This is the only book by this author I haven't reread multiple times, and this first reread made me remember why I consider this my least favourite book by her.
It's definitely not a bad book. I enjoyed reading it for the most part. But it also lacks... something? The multiple threads of the plot are not as tightly woven together as most of Kingsbridge's other works, with some fraying and forgotten threads along the way.
This also sort of felt like a fanfic. As a lover of fanfic, I'm not holding it against Blood Red, it just jumped out at me.
For one, there is A LOT of sex. I'm pretty sure half of the pages involve something sexual. Again, that's not bad, just noticeable.
Then there's the plot:
Aedan is a so-called whoreslave at a fighting arena, meaning he has to "service" the gladiators who fight there. Aedan has the gift of magic, which he keeps hidden and only knows how to use to heal himself. One day a new fighter appears: he not only treats Aedan nicely, but he also turns out to be a beastman - a shifter. When other shifters break into the arena to free their packmember, Aedan goes with them, and suddenly a world full of freedom, fears, magic and dangers opens before him.
The sexual slavery thematic is a big one in this book. Aedan is an orphan who was sold to a brothel as a teen and evenually ended up at the arena, and (sexual) slavery is all he's known his entire life. His experiences and trauma colour his behavious and thought patterns throughout the entire book, long after he becomes a "free man."
In contex with this are several graphic rape scenes, and also scenes with extremely questionable consent - as a reader I couldn't always tell if Aedan genuinely wanted the sex or if he only told himself he wanted it as a means of survival.
Several of these scenes are questioned both by Aedan himself and by his partner(s), but not all of them, and it kept bothering me as the romance subplot began to develop and as Aedan argued for his own will - it all sounded good on paper, but was that really the truth?
I was also a bit disturbed not only by how casual many of the rape scenes were, but also by how casually much of the brutal violence was handled. It made sense given Aedan's history of sexual slavery and someone who regularly watched people beating each other to death in the arena, but it was unsettling to read at times, especially with how little these horrible things are reflected by Aedan.
The plot still consistently kept me hooked. There was always something interesting happening and I enjoyed reading about the shifter culture and about Aedan learning his magic.
There were a few open questions at the end and some things that went unexplained or unexplored which bothered me a little, but this is an online, free-to-read and unedited work of otherwise incredibly quality, so I do not hold that against it.
Aedan was an interesting character to read about, complex and intelligent, but also a very unreliable narrator.
Content warnings include: repeated graphic rape and violence, (sexual) slavery, mentions of magical mpreg