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A review by ladyseven
Wildblood by Lauren Blackwood
dark
tense
medium-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
1.0
TBF I knew before reaching the 50% that I was hating this and that my best option was to dnf this one.
I kept going because YA is so fast paced and short that I figured that after reading one half the other half shouldn't take long.
okay, I'll just copy/paste my notes in here and call it a day because I'm so mad that not even the somehow satisfactory ending can make me like this book a little more. I decided from the moment I realized I hated this book to give it 2 stars but by the end I was so mad I fixed myself on 1. This is a rare low rating from mee so I'm feeling really bad with myself :(
I Hate this book so much that I took notes on everything I hated as soon as it appeared on page lol
So, things I like about this book:
- The idea of Wildbloods and a jungle full on supernatural things.
Things I didn’t like:
- The overuse of the expression “I kissed my teeth” “He kissed his teeth”. EDITOR PULEASE do something about this, why didn’t you say anything? My eyeballs almost combusted from reading this ever so often.
- The characters, they were Bland AF. I’ve seen the word bland around, used to describe a myriad of bookish things. I’ve never felt the need to use it myself before, until this book. Every character had a single personality trait if they had that luck, if not then they were as blank as my math exams.
- The expression “my boys” *gags* and the way Thorn became one of “her boys” after one day in the jungle. On that note:
- The insta-cringy-love & the unnecessary “love” scene, (not graphic smut since its YA but not fade to black either. I don’t mind this in general, I mean.. I read smut, but here felt wrong. The timing, the inner monologue, everything felt wrong).
- The fact that the age gap between them felt so wrong too. In the beginning I couldn’t understand, she was 18 and he was of an unknown youngish age. Then it sunk… she had her 18th birthday, but technically given her…. Nature(?), 5 years need to be taken from her age so… she’s 13? Well, she certainly sounds like that, her being the narrator sucked for me. I’d rather have Dean.
- The plot was way too predictable. This wouldn’t be something I’d take issue but here it was so obvious that her friends were cannon fodder, they had the dead flag above them even before we knew their names, that sucks.
- FMC in YA tend to be obnoxious, I know that. It’s part of the charm and it all goes away with the magic of character development. They need to be on the “bad” end of the personality spectrum if we want them to get better. But this bitch was dumb from beginning to end.
- Oh, pairing is important! Until the FMC and ML are together, then they need privacy and the jungle in no longer dangerous. Then the rest to go so shush! Go away bothersome group of ppl who are here just because the plot need you, most of them don’t even have a name. Scratch that, we don’t even know how many extras are there. As many as the plot requires to kill. Only the dead are given names, among the living, besides the main cast & antagonists, only the FMC friends and two side characters are given the benefit of names. (And one of the two is slightly antagonistic, the other one is the ONLY other female character… yes, besides the narrator there are no women in this place because the plot only requires one pretty girl and that’s it).
- Oh, the ML was also very obnoxious. He suffers from the syndrome “I’m always right even tho I don’t know shit” and “You need to like me because of my sobby background”. In the beginning of the book all I wanted was for him to shut up already and by the end I just wanted the same thing.
- The stupidly use of the trope “The FMC is too good to kill, she’s better than that” after she killed an unknown amount of ppl. You mean she’s “too good” to kill a named character, because she just slaughtered the cannon fodder bitches in the background without a second thought.
- I can’t believe this but, Dean was a more interesting character than Victoria and/or Thorn. At least he had a little bit of… depth? Not really but at least he was slightly more fleshed out than the rest.
- Samson talking about his conversations with Mumma as if their marriage wasn’t literally 2 days old. “Sometimes I get mad at her…” You’ve known her for literally 2 days! You guys are not an old married couple, not yet at least but nice try.
Reasons I like Dean for:
- "You barely know the man, Victoria.” YES, but she is, of course, deeply, madly in love.
- “Eat your tongue,” Dean mutters. “Then we’ll both win.” This Dude can literally read my thoughts. Thank you Dean, I wanted Thorn to be mute from the second he showed up.
“He’s too cheerful,” Dean grumbles. “You actually like that?”
I smirk. “Are you jealous, Dean?”
He scowls and looks away, down the road toward our dreaded destination. “I just think he needs to learn how to read the room.”
I had one or two extra quotes but I lost them and I don’t feel like looking for them. I’m done with this book.
I kept going because YA is so fast paced and short that I figured that after reading one half the other half shouldn't take long.
okay, I'll just copy/paste my notes in here and call it a day because I'm so mad that not even the somehow satisfactory ending can make me like this book a little more. I decided from the moment I realized I hated this book to give it 2 stars but by the end I was so mad I fixed myself on 1. This is a rare low rating from mee so I'm feeling really bad with myself :(
I Hate this book so much that I took notes on everything I hated as soon as it appeared on page lol
So, things I like about this book:
- The idea of Wildbloods and a jungle full on supernatural things.
Things I didn’t like:
- The overuse of the expression “I kissed my teeth” “He kissed his teeth”. EDITOR PULEASE do something about this, why didn’t you say anything? My eyeballs almost combusted from reading this ever so often.
- The characters, they were Bland AF. I’ve seen the word bland around, used to describe a myriad of bookish things. I’ve never felt the need to use it myself before, until this book. Every character had a single personality trait if they had that luck, if not then they were as blank as my math exams.
- The expression “my boys” *gags* and the way Thorn became one of “her boys” after one day in the jungle. On that note:
- The insta-cringy-love & the unnecessary “love” scene, (not graphic smut since its YA but not fade to black either. I don’t mind this in general, I mean.. I read smut, but here felt wrong. The timing, the inner monologue, everything felt wrong).
- The fact that the age gap between them felt so wrong too. In the beginning I couldn’t understand, she was 18 and he was of an unknown youngish age. Then it sunk… she had her 18th birthday, but technically given her…. Nature(?), 5 years need to be taken from her age so… she’s 13? Well, she certainly sounds like that, her being the narrator sucked for me. I’d rather have Dean.
- The plot was way too predictable. This wouldn’t be something I’d take issue but here it was so obvious that her friends were cannon fodder, they had the dead flag above them even before we knew their names, that sucks.
- FMC in YA tend to be obnoxious, I know that. It’s part of the charm and it all goes away with the magic of character development. They need to be on the “bad” end of the personality spectrum if we want them to get better. But this bitch was dumb from beginning to end.
- Oh, pairing is important! Until the FMC and ML are together, then they need privacy and the jungle in no longer dangerous. Then the rest to go so shush! Go away bothersome group of ppl who are here just because the plot need you, most of them don’t even have a name. Scratch that, we don’t even know how many extras are there. As many as the plot requires to kill. Only the dead are given names, among the living, besides the main cast & antagonists, only the FMC friends and two side characters are given the benefit of names. (And one of the two is slightly antagonistic, the other one is the ONLY other female character… yes, besides the narrator there are no women in this place because the plot only requires one pretty girl and that’s it).
- Oh, the ML was also very obnoxious. He suffers from the syndrome “I’m always right even tho I don’t know shit” and “You need to like me because of my sobby background”. In the beginning of the book all I wanted was for him to shut up already and by the end I just wanted the same thing.
- The stupidly use of the trope “The FMC is too good to kill, she’s better than that” after she killed an unknown amount of ppl. You mean she’s “too good” to kill a named character, because she just slaughtered the cannon fodder bitches in the background without a second thought.
- I can’t believe this but, Dean was a more interesting character than Victoria and/or Thorn. At least he had a little bit of… depth? Not really but at least he was slightly more fleshed out than the rest.
- Samson talking about his conversations with Mumma as if their marriage wasn’t literally 2 days old. “Sometimes I get mad at her…” You’ve known her for literally 2 days! You guys are not an old married couple, not yet at least but nice try.
Reasons I like Dean for:
- "You barely know the man, Victoria.” YES, but she is, of course, deeply, madly in love.
- “Eat your tongue,” Dean mutters. “Then we’ll both win.” This Dude can literally read my thoughts. Thank you Dean, I wanted Thorn to be mute from the second he showed up.
“He’s too cheerful,” Dean grumbles. “You actually like that?”
I smirk. “Are you jealous, Dean?”
He scowls and looks away, down the road toward our dreaded destination. “I just think he needs to learn how to read the room.”
I had one or two extra quotes but I lost them and I don’t feel like looking for them. I’m done with this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, and Rape