Children of Virtue and Vengeance
Although the blurb on this book primarily references Zélie, Amari’s POV seems to be in this novel at least as much as Zélie’s, certainly more so than in the first book. She’s an important part of the novel and also a frustrating one. There is a lot of repetition of characters’ thoughts and behaviors in this book. Set a few weeks after the events of the last book, civil war has essentially broken out. Zélie’s ritual didn’t just return magic to Orïsha, it also brought a different but similar magic to some members of the nobility, who are now called tîtáns. The kingdom is still hunting maji, in spite of the fact that members of the nobility and military now have magic. Amari and Zélie consistently butt heads over how to respond to this, with Amari regularly recognizing that as future queen, she needs to be thinking about all of Orïsha, whereas Zélie and other maji rebels are focused on their own self-preservation.
I did really enjoy this book, though. The timing inconsistencies of the first book aren’t repeated, and Adeyemi seems to try retroactively to explain away one of them, unsuccessfully in my opinion. There is a lot of action, and I wanted to know what would happen next, so the book was very engaging, in spite of some of my frustration with the characters and something atrocious that Amari did that might make her irredeemable.
Just a note – check your trigger warnings. The violence that comes with war is present in this novel, and the epilogue was jarring and could be very unsettling for anyone who’s not expecting it, though I also don’t know if it’s something that is likely to show up in a list of trigger warnings.
Children of Anguish and Anarchy (CW for violence, body horror, animal abuse)
The epilogue of book 2 and the beginning of this book completely change the trajectory of the trilogy. There’s a new villain now that the book is focused on. While I wasn’t expecting this and didn’t prefer it, at first I devoured this book. It’s fast-paced and I wanted to know more. The different forms of magic that were introduced with new characters and new countries were interesting, too. We also start getting POV chapters from Tzain, which I liked.
But.
But the political situation in Orïsha that started the events of book one is not given much attention. The awful thing that Amari did toward the end of the second book is nearly forgotten about, and a significant character from that book gets little more than a passing mention. The ending of the book was rushed, not fully believable, and unsatisfying.
Overall, I’m glad I read the trilogy. There are probably people who would be happy to stop reading after the first book, but I wanted to know how things ended. While book 3 has a lot of flaws, I didn’t hate it (3.5 stars rounded down to 3). It just didn’t meet my hopes and expectations.
CBR16 Bingo – Part 2
CBR16 Bingo – Golden – for a significant medallion in book 3
