"My world is only half of what it should be, and I am only half of what I really am. I cannot afford to be whole."

Blood Scion is a YA sci-fi/fantasy novel that follows the story of a child soldier as she struggles to maintain her humanity in a world determined to turn her into a monster. It reminded me a bit of R.F. Kuang's Poppy War series as well as Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. It's definitely a gritty story filled with pain and tragedy.
Sloane is a Scion: she has the magic of the old gods, which is forbidden. When she is drafted as a child soldier to serve the queen's army by slaughtering rebels, she must do her best to keep her magic and motives hidden as she attends training. The pacing was relatively fast, although the last 100 pages or so were practically rapid-fire, and I really enjoyed the ending. There were a bunch of plot twists, some of which I guessed and some of which I didn't. While the first 75% or so was fairly predictable (there are a lot of YA books that focus on "training" of some sort), it still had enough unique flair to keep me interested.
The characters are all very dynamic and 3-dimensional. I liked Sloane as a main character, and her character arc was intriguing. I'm excited to see what happens in the next book. I liked most of the side characters, but my favorite was probably Izara. The romance-type stuff toward the end seemed very abrupt, but I think the author solved the problem already. I also hope we get to find out more about Ara, Nazarin, and Jericho in the sequel.
Blood Scion is a YA sci-fi/fantasy novel rich with African-inspired folklore that tackles what it means to lose one's humanity.

4/5