What a huge heaping pile of horse shit I had to crawl through, just to reach the end of this dreadful story. First off heads. Head's everywhere! Axed off. Cut off. Sawed off. Staked. Bagged. Hanging from walls, tents, around waists. Ugh. I am completely skeeved out by beheadings. Still, I kept reading. Surely it can only get better? Hurrump! No character building. The characters are all complete idjits. Finally there was no ending. None. At no time did I ever get lost in this book. The Cape, the carnival and its people not once became real to me, but I did at least expect some resolution. I'll not recommend or read anything from this author.

I did not finish this book. The off page child rape and the sibling molestation made me uncomfortable. I won't be reviewing it.

Intersting story. Nothing that truly stuck out to me or struck me in anyway.

I am a huge fan of post-apocalyptic books. I enjoy reading about how a civilization would adjust if something awful happened. So, when I saw Wonderblood, I was excited. I was excited because the author had this civilization worshipping NASA and the space shuttles. It was something different from the usual post-apocalyptic stories. Then I started reading the book and became disappointed. I actually struggled to finish reading it. Which is something that I rarely do.

If the author had stuck with only the girl’s storyline, I would have liked this book more. But the constant switching between characters became confusing after a while. There were several times where I would start a chapter, get a few paragraphs in and have to reread because I thought it was another character. That alone made me want to DNF it. I can’t stand it when chapters aren’t labeled when the author switches characters POV. Makes it very difficult to keep the rhythm of the story going if I have to keep going back in a chapter to reread it.

I felt that there were several unresolved storylines. Such as the plotline with the Pardoness. She asked Marvel to get a surgeon to cut off her legs, which were deformed. Marvel (the Hierophant) went through all the trouble tracking Tygo (the prisoner) down and taking him from John (the Chief Orbital Doctor). Then nothing ever happened. Instead, all 3 men did something else and she was never mentioned again. The other storylines were not as major but still annoying. I dislike it when I am reading a book and a storyline is dropped.

I didn’t feel a connection to the characters at all. All the characters felt flat. They were not 3 dimensional at all. Not rounded out. Put it this way, when I read a book, I like to imagine the characters as flesh and blood people. I couldn’t even with these characters. They were more paper doll-like in my mind.

The end of Wonderblood confused me. It was written as a cliffhanger but there is no mention of a 2nd book. All the storylines are left up in the air. There is no resolution of anything.

Now, there were some parts of the book I liked. I thought the plotline was original. I liked that the author used NASA, the space shuttles and Cape Canaveral as major plot points. The fact that these people worshipped the shuttles and NASA fascinated me.

What also fascinated me was that this civilization kept heads as charms. Yes, human heads. They were supposed to protect and guide them in that horrible world. The last thing that fascinated me, and I wished more time had been spent explaining it, was that medicine and surgery were forbidden. If you were found practicing, you were put to death.

I would give Wonderblood an Adult rating. There are sexual situations and disturbing scenes of pedophilia. There are some very graphic scenes of violence.

I would not reread this book. I also would not recommend to family and friends. While the plotline was good and had promise, I felt that the cons outweighed the pros.

The cons are: flat characters, dropped storylines, unresolved storylines and an ending that is confusing.

The pros: Interesting storyline

I have always loved dystopian books so naturally I was intrigued by the synopsis I read on Wonderblood. The story is set about 500 years into the future and most of the population has been decimated by something called "bent neck" disease (maybe like mad cow?). The population appears to be divided into those who believe in magic and those who worship the stars and believe that the shuttles that launched hundreds of years ago are destined to return to earth to save the devout.
The story begins with a young girl getting taken by Mr. Capulatio to be his new bride when he returns to Cape Canaveral the "mecca" (so to speak) to those that have made a religion out of space travel. He plans to take over as the True King as predicted in the texts he decifers.
From the description of the story I really felt that this would be something I could lose myself in but I had a very hard time connecting with what I thought were the main characters. There were just too many characters with nothing really engaging about any of them. I struggled to finish the book and even though the writing was beautiful the story did not resound the way I had hoped it would. I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this book. The characters felt hard to sympathize or relate to, and it just felt really sad and depressing and unnecessarily gory with all the head collecting. I really wanted to like it more than I did.

Definitely not my kind of book, but the author does a great job of drawing you in! It's a sci-fi/fantasy mix, with people dying of a plague and putting their hope in religion and superstitions. There's a rotating narrative, which I didn't find super helpful to the story line but gives the reader better idea of what's going on in general. The action mainly follows a girl, a skeptic of magic and the religious order, who is proclaimed to be The Queen and is expected to bring an end to the world's suffering. The ending of the book is definitely set up for a sequel. It's kind of a darker read, so if that sounds like your cup of tea I'd recommend this one.

I finished Wonderblood late last night and needed to sleep on it before I could formulate my thoughts into a coherent review. Firstly, this is a debut novel for Julia Whicker and although this book did not blow me away, I would certainly be interested in other books (unrelated to this one) that she may write in the future. I enjoyed her writing style a lot which was not just agreeable but at times absolutely lyrical.

At the beginning of the book, literally the first 10 to 15-pages, there was some content that almost made me give it up. It did not grab me at all and in fact certain elements of it turned me off. It is an adult sci-fi novel that is set in a very gritty, very harsh post-apocalyptic wasteland. There are triggers for abuse, child rape, sibling incest and/or sibling molestation; I could see this causing a lot of people to turn away very quickly from this book. If you can get by that, it does get a lot better and I am glad that I stuck with it.

The middle is where I feel the story is at its strongest, with political intrigue and an interesting "religious" system. The story does take place in a future United States, which has had its population decimated by a mad cow-like disease - this story picks up in the aftermath of that although we never learn too much about the chain of events prior to the current action. Quite generally, it reminded me of Mad Max meets The Road.

One of my biggest disappointments for this book was the lack of character development. I came away just feeling blah about all of the characters - there were none that I related too or even felt that I knew enough about to care for in any way. If this were a start to a series (I am not sure if it is slated as a stand-alone or a series), I would not pick up the second book, really because I just do not care what happens to any of these characters. Additionally, I didn't feel like the atmosphere was strong enough to make up for the lack of character development.

Mainly, I gave this three stars due to the writing style of the author and the unique ideas included in the world she was creating - for example, I loved that the characters worshiped NASA space shuttles and had Cape Canaveral as their holiest of sites - but the execution overall fell a little flat for me. *I was given a copy of this book from St. Martin's Press in exchange for an honest review and I certainly appreciate the opportunity to read it and comment on it. I am excited to hear what others think of this story!

This was pretty darn good. The world was richly developed, and the characters were well-rounded and interesting. The history of how the planet got to this point was very intriguing; personally, I'd love to see a story from that part of history.

'Wonderblood' will draw you in and make it difficult to leave this bloody, harsh, but ultimately hopeful tale.

I just could not get into this book. The narrative style and how empty the characters felt was probably why.
I did not care about anything, and that is probably why I had a hard time getting into the book

I am a fan of dystopian novels, and this one looked intriguing. But I just couldn't do it. Mostly, it lacks any real character building. leaving me in this bleak world where I didn't feel a connection to any of the characters. The world is bleak. The human race is decimated by mad cow, but no one remembers that was the cause. Doctors are banned and Cape Canaveral is the center of a strange religion of sorts. They believe the 5 space shuttles and their astronauts will one day return to save them. The ground is poisoned and they are trying to purify it with blood, which is really just making it worse (though they don't know that). The novel could have been really interesting with this premise, but it failed to deliver. I stopped at 45% and even that was a struggle.

I really liked this one. The synopsis sounded like something I would enjoy, but when I first started actually reading it, I wasn't sure if it was the book for me. However, I decided to stick with this one, and it ended up being soo good. It goes a lot of different places I didn't expect, and I'm assuming there will be more to come which I'm definitely excited for. If the synopsis sounds intriguing to you and you're okay with some touchy subject matter, I would definitely recommend it.

Oh man, this was like going on a first date and ALMOST feeling a spark but not quite, haha. From the blurb, I was all in. Dystopian society? Check. Carnivals? Check. Rival queens? Oh yes please.

However, sadly, the execution fell flat. The idea and the strong writing is there, but I think this book should have had a lot more editing. It felt long and aimless at certain points and I really had to push myself to finish the last 10% (and shouldn't that be the best part to want to read?)

I was also sorely disappointed that so much of the book was about other characters aside from Aurora. I thought it was going to center with her and even have a first person POV, but instead there were a lot of other main characters that I did not connect with. John and Marvel felt like the exact same person to me, to be honest. I know they weren't but it was hard as a reader to sense any difference in their development, they both fell flat. I think this could have been alleviated by a first person perspective for different narratives, instead of the passive and seemingly removed third person perspective that the book has.

I had even MORE disappointment that there was not more world-building. We never get an explanation of what exactly Bent Head is as a disease and why the setting is post-apocalyptic. What exactly happened, other than a disease? Why did all these carnival factions rise up with this blood magic and Heads? I was also confused about Kansas versus the Cape and the differing power dynamics there... The overall world was pretty unclear to me.

So what did I like? I liked Orchid as a strong and fierce female character. I liked the (small) portions with the Green Butterfly prophetess - I wish she had been integrated more. I liked the writing and Game of Thrones-esque beauty and brutality (don't read if you are sensitive to imagery of gore and violence). But I can't recommend this as-is, I really think it could have been a slam dunk with significantly more editing and investment in the characters and world-building.

Sincere thank you to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC.

Fast forward 500 years and Earth is a very bad place to live. Bent Head, which seems to resemble mad cow disease, has killed off score of people. Those left have no concept of civilization and wander in bands of murderous groups called Carnivals. The object of life seems to be killing as many rival Carnivals as possible, keeping their heads, or Heads, as they are called, to prove your worth. Aurora is in a Carnival with her brother when a rival faction murders everyone but Aurora, who Mr. Capulatio keeps her as a sort of pet . In a world where science is magic and people worship the launch platforms and space shuttle remnants at Cape Canaveral, life is indeed grim. This was one of the bleakest Dystopian books, I’ve ever read, it’s also one of the most clever, plunging humanity back into the Dark Ages when anything unknown was considered dangerous and therefore subject to death. There’s a powerful analogy and connection to the world we live in today in this story, making it even more frightening.