Yikes.

I think this book is Armentrout’s first foray into high fantasy. She’s very prolific already, although mostly modern romance and PNR which are less my thing. Keeping those facts in mind helps explain a few of the bad writing choices, but not, by any means, all.

So to start I absolutely hate the name “Pennellephe”. Every time it appeared in the text, I had to slow down and sound it out and each time I did, my brain was like, “Why.” I also hate that the bad faction is called “Descenters”. I get how it sounds similar, and that’s cute, I guess? but why are they called that? The book has lots of modern slang throughout, so made-up words stand out all the more and deserve an explanation.

Poppy (shudder) has little to no agency in major story beats, and that’s actually done well. At some point, she explains that living is for other people, not for her, and that’s a really interesting concept to explore. I wish her character matched this backstory better: a person who grows up isolated, coddled and repressed is going to have some learned helplessness and trauma responses, but Poppy has none of that. It’s a backstory laid over the top of an independent, spirited individual. While admirable in theory, it makes the whole Maiden story device fall flat.

I’m doing the math here, and if families are only allowed to keep their first two children, especially in this violent universe, the population will decline. The city feels entirely too bustling for the truth of the matter, which is people are dying off to attacks, curses, accidents and the Ascended much faster than they can reproduce. It should be a ghost town.

There’s no map. The number of places Armentrout drops requires a map, even a shitty hand drawn one. SOMETHING. Maybe she just didn’t get around to it and book 2 will have one?

I’ve seen people suggest a drinking game where you take a shot every time Hawk says Poppy is “intriguing”. I suggest sips instead, because it’s no good to black out before you even get a third of the way through!

And there’s this one point where he makes an obvious false dichotomy logical fallacy while arguing with her, and she’s like, “oh I guess that’s right,” and uh NO, that’s not right! This is not an unreliable narrator, its just a weak fucking argument.

A relatively sane story goes off the rails in the last 15% of the story. Hawke/Casteel’s (which. Don’t get me started on how dumb those names are) werewolf minions flat-out murder the humans protecting Poppy and imprison her as leverage to regain Casteel’s brother. Casteel goes through a total personality change; instead of an honorable, if roguish, man who respects humans and believes in death with dignity, he becomes a bloodthirsty asshole. Poppy’s guards didn’t need to be murdered, although if they had died, he could have treated their deaths with dignity but instead it was treated flippantly, light-heartedly, almost like it was the butt of a joke. He tells Poppy early on that no one will hurt her again, and instead sets her up for a long string of perilous situations that end up in her nearly dying. Rather than taking on responsibility for his mistake of leaving her alone with werewolves who, for some reason, hate her (she’s a human?! Not their enemy??), he instead murders his minions to what, I guess, warn the others off? He sets them up, impaled and disemboweled, inside the castle? Which, *gross*. It’s a tiny castle, the people he wanted to send the message to aren’t going to see them there. It’s barbaric and a complete change from the man who OSTENSIBLY respected those who live life in service and belief that they deserve to die a dignified death? He could have just publicly executed them but he had to get creative and cruel? That’s an entirely villainesque move. See, I can make up words too. But they MAKE SENSE IN CONTEXT.

Then he feeds on Poppy, which. Uh. He insisted the whole time that Atlantians (cuh-RINGE) didn’t feed on humans, so I guess that’s not true. But it’s okay! Because it turns out she’s only half human??

Honestly there is too much of the story told through exposition. People who shouldn’t have knowledge are just laying it straight out, like Hawke is somehow instantly sure that one of Poppy’s parents was an Atlantian, rather than her discovering it herself, maybe once she visits Atlantis? That would have been such a good way to develop her character and allow her to explore her roots! But yeah, I guess the villain, I mean love interest, telling her straight-out works too.

But then it makes no sense, as Poppy rightly points out, that Hawke intends to trade her to the ascended because now she’s essentially his countryman. So it’s probably illegal for him to be holding her prisoner, and even MORE illegal that he then decides to MARRY HER (??????) without her consent.

Like, I get it. He’s supposed to be complicated and moody and a Bad Boy ™. But that character archetype only works if (1) his actions are defensible (otherwise he’s indistinguishable from the villain) and (2) Poppy has enough agency to have other options, and choose him anyway. Neither of those are the case, rendering the love interest a total douchebag instead.

So Hawke sucks. Poppy’s character is flat. The world building sucks. The abrupt character change in Hawke made no sense.

This book has such serious shortcomings that I just. I can’t even. So why am I holding the second book in my hands? because I’m an idiot who bought the second book without reading the first.

Maybe this mess will redeem itself in book 2. Otherwise I may dnf.

A review by sunshinesusan From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Yikes.

A review by sunshinesusan
From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout