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nymphie 's review for:
Forged by Blood
by Ehigbor Okosun
1.5/5 stars. Despite being published as an adult book, Forged by Blood felt like a stale YA. I wanted to love this book. African mythology is super cool and the premise sounded great, but it really missed the mark. The characters were immature, whiny, and insufferable. The plot is ridiculously confusing and hard to follow. The worldbuilding and magic system make zero sense. The narration is cold and stiff, so I couldn’t connect with the protagonist at all. This book had no redeeming qualities to me. I’m deeply disappointed with this FairyLoot selection.
The love triangle was the worst part about this book, in my opinion. Nevermind the fact that this story suffers from the same overused angry jealous boy vs quiet understanding boy, but the female protagonist treats them both absolutely horribly. Dèmi constantly manipulates them both and plays them against each other. She flat out says that she does not ever see herself romantically interested in one of them, but is making out with him five minutes later.
Many important world-building elements were not explained until after a related plot twist would happen, leaving me super confused, and even then the explanation behind it was lackluster and felt like an afterthought. These moments seriously felt like the author thought, “Oh, you know what sounds cool right now?” and threw it in there without any respect to previously-established world-building. If the author had sat down and planned out the world BEFORE writing the story, instead of forcing the world to bend around the current plot point in the moment, this book would have felt more cohesive.
The characters make insane choices that don’t align with their previously-established traits and developments. The dialogue is horrid. I don’t understand how the protagonist has survived this long being as whiny and demanding as she is. The audiobook narration makes it much, much worse. The narrator’s voice is so jarring and screechy, listening to the dialogue was almost painful. I don’t understand the motives behind a lot of characters because they seem conflicting and not well thought-out. I was just super, super confused the entire time I was reading.
The love triangle was the worst part about this book, in my opinion. Nevermind the fact that this story suffers from the same overused angry jealous boy vs quiet understanding boy, but the female protagonist treats them both absolutely horribly. Dèmi constantly manipulates them both and plays them against each other. She flat out says that she does not ever see herself romantically interested in one of them, but is making out with him five minutes later.
Many important world-building elements were not explained until after a related plot twist would happen, leaving me super confused, and even then the explanation behind it was lackluster and felt like an afterthought. These moments seriously felt like the author thought, “Oh, you know what sounds cool right now?” and threw it in there without any respect to previously-established world-building. If the author had sat down and planned out the world BEFORE writing the story, instead of forcing the world to bend around the current plot point in the moment, this book would have felt more cohesive.
The characters make insane choices that don’t align with their previously-established traits and developments. The dialogue is horrid. I don’t understand how the protagonist has survived this long being as whiny and demanding as she is. The audiobook narration makes it much, much worse. The narrator’s voice is so jarring and screechy, listening to the dialogue was almost painful. I don’t understand the motives behind a lot of characters because they seem conflicting and not well thought-out. I was just super, super confused the entire time I was reading.