Honestly, I requested this book before I had a chance to read book Blood at the Root (BatR). I heard about the hype and controversy around this series, so I decided to give it a try for my own perspective.

I have a VERY detailed rant of BatR on my Fable, so I won’t do that detailed of a review for this one. After hating BatR, I decided to give BatC a shot because some of the ARC reviews say that it’s better than BatR. I do think it’s the absolute tiniest bit better, but I found myself being very bored with this story. My main criticism is that it completely erases the levity of book one, and it’s entirely too long for it not have told us much. This book felt very much like a filler, and I believe the series could’ve easily been a duopoly for the lack of depth that happened in this story.

The writing style does have less pop culture references, and I appreciate the in text translations and context that were the opposite of BatR. The World Building is still severely lacking for me, and there were so many gaps in development and issues with continuity from BatR which was only a month away. The characters also seemed to regress for the sake of “development.”

In conclusion, do not read this series. The writing is dense, repetitive, and nonsensical, and many sentences will leave you sitting there scratching your head in confusion.

Thank you Netgalley for a copy of this book. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.