A review by rinku
Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

It’s baffling to me that From Blood to Ash has currently an average rating of 4.3 stars. Even my two stars are quite generous for some scenes in the middle of the book that I liked and the main character having some interesting struggles. 

The general story of the book was kinda boring and barely there. Poppy is the Chosen One (even though no one is treating her like one) which means she has to wear a veil all the time and live isolated in a castle. By coincidence, she meets Hawke who becomes her lifeguard and some threatening things happening. Yeah, I don’t know about this summary. The focus of the story is definitely not on the fantasy aspect but on the romance. This becomes already clear in the first chapter which was honestly just so cringy and already showed the weird obsession the story has with virginity. 

There were some scenes I liked though and maybe the general darker atmosphere because of which I still gave two stars:
For example, the mass panic and chapters after the duke’s death were well written and Poppy killing Lord Mazeen was such a powerful moment
. Some interesting things, like the rituals before this scene, were sadly not shown and other things, like court life, were not so well described – I’ve read The Priory of the Orange Tree before and while it was not my favorite book of all time, court life was described there so great in comparison. 

Towards the end of the story, there are many reveals but most of them were quite predictable:
Hawke being a traitor was not really surprising and neither is the fact that he’s Casteel – when I heard Casteel’s name for the first time, I was sure that Poppy would fall in love with him, and I was not so wrong about this. Right at the beginning, I predicted as well that Poppy would be some half thing – and I was right: she’s half vampire, half human. I’m generally not a fan of this twist that some characters have secret identities
. 

The world building is also quite weak; Armentrout does it exactly like she did in the Covenant series with characters looking into books and reading about the world. This is just so lazy and not engaging. Other ideas, like the blood forest or just adding letters to non-fantasy names so that they sound more like fantasy felt uncreative as well. Furthermore, other aspects are not explained well enough, like what exactly Poppy’s gift is. 

Talking about the Covenant series, I complained there that she doesn’t use many descriptions, and this at least changed here. I just can’t put it into words though, but something about the writing style bothered me that it felt kinda exhausting? Some descriptions were just terrible, like the “very hard, very manly body”. There were too many “…” as well and it’s so cheap how every chapter ends with a cliff-hanger, so you want to continue with it even though the plot is not interesting. 

When looking at the characters, Poppy fulfils many stereotypes often seen in this genre. Her parents are dead, she’s the chosen one, has no character or weaknesses – she’s just boring. The only thing I enjoyed about her character was her struggle with her role and how she started to discover herself, but this was overshadowed by the rest of her bland character. 

But by far the worst thing about this novel is Hawke. I absolutely despise him and he’s probably my most hated love interest that I’ve ever come. It’s so terrible how he treats Poppy; I’m pretty sure he’s never heard of consent and just does what he wants, even though Poppy clearly says “no” multiple times and is visibly uncomfortable. He also gaslights her emotions, claiming that she doesn’t know what she wants. It’s so annoying how he calls her Princess the whole time even though she doesn’t want this as well. 

In general, their relationship made me so uncomfortable. He’s supposed to be her guard but is so unprofessional towards her. The worst moment for me was when towards the end,
Poppy fails at killing him and they sleep with each other instantly afterwards. He makes sexual comments all the time, even though Poppy says how much she hates him
. Besides this, he’s your cliché sarcastic love interest. He has no weaknesses, all the girls at the court simp for him, he’s constantly making sexual comments towards the main character – just like Seth from the Covenant series. Furthermore,
he’s centuries old (please not this again)
, and as soon as he’s with Poppy, she has no panic attacks and nightmares anymore, as if those would go away so easily. 

Besides him, almost all other male characters are (sexually, physically, and verbally) abusive towards Poppy and either terrorize her or want to sleep with her, it’s so tiring. Their reasons for this are also so vague; one of those guys terrorizes her because he lost one (1) card game to her brother. Vikter was the only male character I liked because he seemed to be interested in Poppy’s well-being but
of course, like it’s usual for a mentor figure, he has to die
. Otherwise, there are almost no female characters and none that are interesting. 

Just out of curiosity, I would probably read the second book of the Blood and Ash series if my library gets it one day. Until then, I’m not sad to not continue this series since it has quite many clichés and a love interest I just can’t stand. 
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